Designing a Distribution DMG for Your MacOS App

Completing the DMG Layout with Coordinates In Part 1, we introduced the create-dmg tool and prepared a staging folder holding only the .app along with a background image. Now for the final piece, the layout. How large to open the DMG window, and where to place the app icon and the Applications shortcut — all of this is decided by the coordinates you pass to create-dmg. In this article, we’ll design those coordinates one by one. ...

The First Screen a User Sees When you distribute a macOS app yourself, the user downloads a .dmg file and double-clicks it. At that moment, a single Finder window opens. This window is the first screen where the user meets your app. A well-made .dmg window usually looks like this — a guide image fills the background, the app icon sits on the left, and a shortcut to the Applications folder sits on the right. The user finishes the install by dragging the app icon over to Applications. This “drag to install” flow is effectively the standard installation experience for indie macOS apps. ...