MacOS – How does OS X detect a PowerPC application

applicationsmacospowerpcterminal

I use an application called Anki for learning foreign languages and professional terminology.
This app creates a default folder in /Users/user/Documents/Anki, which I did not want.

You can circumvent this by calling the app from the CLI with the -b option. Because of that, I went into the app bundle and looked for executable in Anki.app/Contents/MacOs/, which is simply called Anki.

I renamed this file to Anki2 and made a new executable called Anki, which simply reads:

/Applications/Anki.app/Contents/MacOS/Anki2 -b /Users/henrikgiesel/Library/Application\ Support/Anki

And I can open the App bundle perfectly fine!… Until the next reboot, then it will complain:

You can’t open the application “Anki.app” because PowerPC applications are no longer supported.

Why is this? How does OS X detect PowerPC application? Would it work if I wrote a C-file doing basically the same and putting the compiled version in the place of the Shell script?

EDIT:

I can still open it from the CLI like this:

/Applications/Anki.app/Contents/MacOS/Anki

But not like this

open /Applications/Anki.app

Best Answer

Try wrapping the shell script as an app using Platypus. I've packaged multiple perl and bash scripts using the program, all appear as simple applications, with an icon of your choice, none have ever been misidentified as PPC apps.

Related Solutions

MacOS – OSX 10.11 incorrectly sees application as powerPC

I reproduced this error on OS X El Capitan version 10.11.6 and found a workaround:

Error:

You can't open the application "Open_todo_in_vim" because PowerPC applications are no longer supported

Picture:

How to Reproduce the error:

Full reproduction instructions found here: https://mathiasbynens.be/notes/shell-script-mac-apps

Jist:

Save this as appify.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash

APPNAME=${2:-$(basename "${1}" '.sh')};
DIR="${APPNAME}.app/Contents/MacOS";

if [ -a "${APPNAME}.app" ]; then
    echo "${PWD}/${APPNAME}.app already exists :(";
    exit 1;
fi;

mkdir -p "${DIR}";
cp "${1}" "${DIR}/${APPNAME}";
chmod +x "${DIR}/${APPNAME}";

echo "${PWD}/$APPNAME.app";

Save it as /usr/local/bin/appify.sh, which requires root privileges give it executable permissions and then run it like so:

$ appify your-shell-script.sh "Your App Name"

Double click on "Your App Name".

Observe the error shown above.

Why is this annoying error happening?

It's a combination of many reasons:

Safety: The developers over at Apple are fighting cybercrime with scripts in the background replacing your docked items. Roadblocks make successful viruses of yesteryear hit a brick wall. This is one of those walls.
Money: The developers over at Apple want you to use their applications, not the applications you found over the internet because every app you use is a potential attack vector from unscrupulous developers worldwide.
Protecting users from themselves: Apple developers only want power users to created docked items, you don't want novices figuring out "Hey! Anyone can drag some_low_level_guts_script.sh to the OSX dock and it solves my problem! Apple prevents this for the same reason parents keep bleach under the sink behind locked doors when toddlers are around.

Hacky Workaround so you can run your script without the PowerPC application error:

I found the answer that explains how to execute Shell Scripts from the OS X Dock here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/21048589/445131

Jist of Hacky workaround

Create your shell script whatever.sh
Make your shell script executable.
Rename your whatever.sh to have a .app suffix: whatever.sh.app
Drag whatever.sh.app to the OSX dock.
Rename your script back to whatever.sh.
Right-click the file in Finder, and click the "Get Info" option.
At the bottom of the window, set the shell script to open with the terminal.

And the error mentioned at top no longer occurs. Double clicking the file on the OSX dock runs the shell script as expected without error.

How to compile with Command Line Tools for Xcode after deleting the Xcode.app application bundle

If you now only have the Command Line Tools for Xcode installed and having deleted the Xcode.app application bundle, then you need to run the following command in Terminal to use the Command Line Tools for Xcode.

xcode-select -switch /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools