Hi,

First off, thank you for the continued work on Fiji—it's an essential tool for many of us.

I had a question about the current macOS distribution format. At present, the macOS download is provided as a ZIP archive that expands to a directory containing the Fiji.app bundle alongside a number of supporting directories and files at the top level.

For example:

Fiji
├── config
├── db.xml.gz
├── fiji
├── Fiji.app
├── fiji.bat
├── images
├── jars
├── java
├── lib
├── licenses
├── luts
├── macros
├── plugins
├── README.md
├── scripts
└── WELCOME.md

From a macOS packaging and management perspective, I wanted to ask whether all of these top-level files and directories are required to be distributed separately, or whether the full runtime environment could instead be encapsulated entirely within the Fiji.app bundle.

If that is feasible, providing either:

• a ZIP containing only the Fiji.app bundle, or
• a standard Apple package installer (.pkg)

would make it significantly easier for organizations to deploy and keep Fiji up to date in managed macOS environments. This would allow common open-source automation tools—such as Installomator or AutoPkg—to automatically download, install, and update Fiji without custom handling.

Installomator works best with app-only ZIPs. When a ZIP expands to a folder containing Fiji.app plus additional top-level directories (e.g., jars, plugins, macros), the folderName/appName pattern becomes unreliable and requires custom handling.

I completely understand if there are technical or historical reasons for the current layout, but I wanted to ask in case a more macOS-native distribution model is possible now or in the future.

Thanks again for your work and for considering this request.