macOS Publishing Example

This article will demonstrate the process of publishing a Cocos Creator project as a macOS application. Before getting started, you will need the following preparations:

  • A macOS device
  • Xcode installed

Publishing Process

Verify the macOS System and Xcode Version

Publishing macOS desktop apps via Cocos Creator environment requirements:

  • Xcode version 11.5 or above.
  • macOS version 10.14 or above.

Note: By default, the corresponding Xcode version in the App Store matches the system. If you want to use a specific version of Xcode, you can download it from the Xcode download page.

Prepare a Test Project

Open an existing project or create a new one.

Build

project-build-menu

As shown in the image above, select Project -> Build from the top menu in Cocos Creator to open the build panel.

build-panel-mac

General Options

In the blue section on the left side of the image, you can find the common parameters that need to be configured for all platforms supported by Cocos Creator. For more details, you can refer to the General Build Options page.

macOS Specific Options

Choose the platform as Mac, and as you scroll down the panel, you will see the red section on the right side. These are the configurations specific to the native and Mac platforms. For more details, please refer to the General Native Build Options and Build Options - macOS pages.

Bundle Identifier

The Bundle Identifier is a required configuration. It is generally in the format of com.mycompany.myproduct. For example, in this example, it is set to com.cocos.mac.

Perform the Build

After completing the configurations, click the Build button to generate the Xcode project.

Once the build is successful, you can click the open file button as shown below to open the generated project folder.

build-open-path-mac

If you haven’t changed the build path, you can find the build/mac/proj directory in the project root, which contains the following files:

xcode-folder-mac

Compile and Run in Xcode

Double-click on build/mac/proj/<project_name>.xcodeproj to open the Xcode project.

xcode-showcase-mac

Select <ProjectName>-desktop as the build target, choose a suitable simulator or a connected Mac device, and click the compile and run button to start the project.

run-mac

Modifying Resolution

You can modify the resolution by editing _windowInfo in native/engine/common/classes/Game.cpp:

The default resolution is 800 x 600. Let’s take the example of changing the resolution to 800 x 400.

  1. int Game::init() {
  2.   _windowInfo.title = GAME_NAME;
  3.   // configure window size
  4.   _windowInfo.width  = 800;
  5.   _windowInfo.height = 400;
  6. }

After making the modifications, compile and run the project again in Xcode. The effect should be as shown in the following image:

run-mac-800to400

Read More

Script-Native Communication

Sometimes, projects need to call macOS system functions from the script layer, or when integrating a third-party macOS SDK, it is necessary to call its API through script code. In such cases, the communication mechanism between the script layer and the native layer is required.

For communication mechanisms, please refer to:

Debugging JavaScript on Native Platforms

Some issues only occur on specific devices and environments. If you can debug the code on the corresponding situation, you can quickly identify the problem and find a solution.

Cocos Creator provides a native debugging mechanism that allows you to easily debug game code on a device. For more details, please refer to Debugging JavaScript on Native Platforms.

Features and System Versions

Different features rely on specific system versions. Please refer to Features and System Versions for more details.