Re: Sharing patch with externals on MacOS

You also just clear all the flags which is easier to remember:

xattr -c <path>

One option: I would provide a script which runs this all all required files. The participants could double-click this after downloading and unpacking the zip.

This is probably happening because the external library to be dynamically loaded is distributed in a zip file. The macOS "Gatekeeper" system recognizes when something is 1. downloaded from a website and 2. contains executables or dynamic libs, in which case, meta flags are set which trigger these warning dialogs. The macOS signing mechanism cannot be applied to zip files so there is verification for who and where the files are coming from, whereas it can with a signed and notarized dmg (mac Disk Images).

All of these things are "annoying" but probably not in the case of grandma and grandpa navigating the modern internet.

As for "moving the libraries make it work but it has a weird path" that's probably die to App Translocation where the library is actually copied to a temp location before being loaded. This is mainly to keep the lib from being able to look or modify local file paths, ie. security. I did some research into the wine trying to figure out how this whole mechanism works (I still don't get it 100%):

https://github.com/zkmkarlsruhe/mac-dist-helper?tab=readme-ov-file#app-translocation

> On Apr 12, 2026, at 11:07 AM, Pierre Alexandre Tremblay <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> Hello
> 
> Did you try the folder signature trick? It is a single command-line and solved a lot of issues
> 
> Check the (now obsolete for us) Danger note at the bottom of this page:
> https://learn.flucoma.org/installation/pd/
> 
> it was clear enough for most in workshops (until I subscribed as apple dev)
> 
> p
> 
> 
>> On 12 Apr 2026, at 10:52, João Pais <[email protected]> wrote:
>> 
>> Hi list,
>> in case there is anyone using mac systems: I have a patch that I usually distribute together with Pd and the external libraries fd_lib, zexy, midifile and iem_tab. Recently while helping someone setting it up, I noticed that because none of this software is authorized (?), on modern OSs it's necessary to allow the system to use each of these libraries separately, by accepting each one in the system security settings, restart Pd, repeat several times, until it will eventually work. And if an update happens, the same process will have to be done again. From what I remember from the past, it seems to have become worse in the last years.
>> This patch is distributed to "normal computer users", which makes it a very big hurdle to make it work, as most of them don't even know that there is an error, how to correct it, etc. They will just assume that something doesn't work, and don't use it.
>> Are there any ways to avoid this from happening, so that running the patch would be just as simple as double-click on the file?
>> 
>> I'm also not a certified member-paying mac developer, but seemed to have managed to authorize my own patch/standalone, so that it can run. Any helpful tips on dealing with that?
>> 
>> (extra details for context:
>> - this happens with the Pd patch, and also with the same patch encapsulated in a Max-Msp patch and standalone, running with pd~
>> - while trying this out, we managed to get the patch running. but when the files were moved to a different folder, it stopped running, and there were no system warnings that something was blocked. after moving the files to the previous folder, it worked again)
>> 
>> Best,
>> Joao
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> 
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--------
Dan Wilcox
danomatika.com <http://danomatika.com/>
robotcowboy.com <http://robotcowboy.com/>

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