When doing desktop applications we typically need to create installers if we don’t have the luxury of playing back from a CD-ROM. For Windows we use InstallShield. For the Mac we haven’t had a need, for our last desktop applications like The Keller Williams Red Pages on the Macintosh version we just had directions for the end user to copy the application folder to their hard drive. I have used Installer Vise, which is a cross platform installer. Vise isn’t a bad solution and worth looking into. It’s been a few years since I used it (at least 5 years ago), but there is a pricing model.

I came across an open source project EasyEclipse that is free and looks like it will fill the needs for Macintosh installers.

Of course any desktop development we seem to be moving to Adobe Apollo so building a custom and full installer is not necessary as the Apollo Framework handles the install.