Mac Stuff-it bugs!

[Jack Norton]

I use Stuff-it as compression system for my Mac games but I am having LOT of problems with it, like:
1) program that doesn't compresses well
2) program that seem compressed but once uploaded is broken
3) customers complaining they get an error even if I can unpack them ok

...and so on...! Anyone else having ALL those problems with .sit files or is just a cosmic conjuration against me?? it seems that this format is quite unstable (if you have slightly different version of unpacker you can have problems too), do you prefer to use .dmg files instead?

Also if someone has some free time, can check if those unpack ok on their mac system?
http://www.winterwolves.com/games/ubmdemo.sit
http://www.winterwolves.com/games/TheGoalkeeper.sit

Bah!!! (Jack furious because with Windows you just make an .exe installer and no more problems...)

[Gnatinator]

just use .zip and compress with winrar, winzip w.v

Stuffit Expander reads those too.

[Jack Norton]

Yes I've thought about that... however looking around I never seen any mac games distributed as a zip file, I wonder if there's a reason for that (maybe mac users don't know how to use it? or something else?).

[Red Marble Games]

I think it's a cosmic conjuration against you. ;) StuffIt has been around as long as the Mac and I've been using it for years with no problems. The only thing I know happened was that there was a brief release of StuffIt that couldn't handle certain MacBinary (.bin) files correctly, but that has been fixed for some time now.

Zip is probably OK now from a technical standpoint -- as noted, StuffIt unpacks them just fine -- but IMHO it's still one of those things that says "I'm a Windows developer really, the Mac thing is an afterthought, I can't be troubled by the format you're all used to." Mac people don't like that sort of thing.

.dmg files work OK too, and they're obviously very Mac-like, but I don't use them because of the extra step -- you still have to create a StuffIt .sit file to get reasonable compression, so then the user has to unstuff your .sit to get a .dmg that then has to be mounted as a disk. It's a lot of steps and a lot of clutter on the desktop. Even if you don't Stuff your .dmg, it's still got to be verified and mounted. Strikes me as an unnecessarily involved process. If you have a bunch of files rather than just the app package itself, it makes more sense, but still.

[Jack Norton]

Hmmm a cosmic conjuration... can't be :(
You mean you never get a customer saying that can't unpack the .sit file? never? I got quite some emails, about 1 per month, which is a lot considering that not everyone will bother to go to my site and use my contact form to say that.
Usually after I tell them "update your stuff-it" they calm down so probably is that. So you can't really say that .sit format has no problem, if customers don't update the expander can have problems, also the stuff-it deluxe isn't compatible with the standard one too... but the most fun thing is that if I use stuff-it on windows to make the .sit, I never have problems !!

Well... so I assume that my .sit are expanding well now (no one tried?)

[Norbyte]

From StuffIt's website:
"StuffIt Expander 8.0 caused a problem whereby applications would not run if they were expanded from archive formats that do not preserve UNIX file permissions. In earlier versions of StuffIt Expander, this problem did not occur because the UNIX "execute" permission was set on all files as they were expanded. StuffIt 8.0.2 restores that feature.

The StuffIt X (.sitx) format does support UNIX file permissions, results in the best compression, protects files from damage, and is therefore the recommended compression format for archiving."

[Jack Norton]

Hmm I spoke with some Mac devs and they recommended me not to use the .sitx system :confused: lol I don't understand clearly why, but surely sit is far from being a "stable standard"!
Good to know the 8.0 version bug anyway.

[Musenik]

I have had good success using the .dmg compressed files. Put your app in a folder and use Disk Copy to generate an image file from the folder. When I used Panther's archive compression, Jaguar systems were unable to unzip the file correctly.

Keith Nemitz
Mousechief Co.

[Norbyte]

Good to know the 8.0 version bug anyway.
If I remember correctly, it wasn't a bug (it was a feature...).
I think Apple told them to stop setting the "execute" permission, which they did.

The StuffIt users didn't like seeing .sit compressed programs failing to run without explanation, so the company behind StuffIt had to start setting the "execute" permission again.

[Jack Norton]

Today got another:
But there is a problem with the UBM version
1.2.6 I just downloaded. Stuffit says there is a
problem with the .sit file, and although it
appears to unstuff, it won't work. I could read
the readme, though, and it seems that I have an
older version of hte game than I thought
So let's resume:
- if I use .sit there are good chances that won't unpack (talked to other devs and they get one msg a week)
- if I use .dmg there's the chance that customer try to register the game inside the .dmg and won't work (because you can't write to a virtual device)
- if I use .zip, isn't mac standard and people could get confusing
- if I use the pkg installer provided with Mac OS, the filesize is too big

...well I wonder that I sell some mac games actually!!!!!! :eek:

[Jack Norton]

Hmm interesting, the same customer (a very good tester) said:

Mac users who use OS X are familiar with using
.zip files since OS X is set up to unstuff them
without using Stuffit. And since your games
won't work under OS 9, there shouldn't be a
problem using .zip files.

lol if that's true... why bother using stuff-it?? I'll just make a zip :)
UPDATE:
Yes works perfectly. You can create a zip file even from windows and unpack it. Mac OS X seems to support it natively and besides, since stuff-it can expand also .zip files, if you make a .sit you can make a .zip as well !

Ok, for future games no more stuff-it :)

[Diodor Bitan]

Original post by Jack Norton
- if I use .dmg there's the chance that customer try to register the game inside the .dmg and won't work (because you can't write to a virtual device)

Hey, isn't it true that you are not supposed to write in the bundle directory anyway? Or have I worked to teach my game manners by only writing to the ~/Library/Application\ Support/PaxGalaxia directory for nothing? (subtle plug, heh :p)

[Jack Norton]

And about this:
Zip is probably OK now from a technical standpoint -- as noted, StuffIt unpacks them just fine -- but IMHO it's still one of those things that says "I'm a Windows developer really, the Mac thing is an afterthought, I can't be troubled by the format you're all used to." Mac people don't like that sort of thing.

At my point (beginner mac developer) is better having a ZIP that works, than a .sit that doesn't :D