I recently got into Java development on MacOS and wondered about how one would get around setting up a proper development workflow for it.

I’ve used JNA to access some Objective-C libraries, such as Foundation and UserNotifications. And it turns out, at least the UserNotifications library is not fully accessible without signing the application. Turns out that jpackage, which I used to create an App-Image, does not support using any self-signed or Apple Development certificates. It seems to be statically looking for a Developer ID Application certificate.

Obviously I won’t pay a 100€ just to play around with this stuff.

Sadly I’ve been unable to find a proper documentation on how to setup such a “toolchain”. Is there a best practice approach for such a scenario?

Note: I “faked” my way to a signed application by putting a self signed cert with the name Developer ID Application: foobar into my keychain. This cert was successfully picked up by jpackage and the app ran perfectly fine. However this doesn’t feel right 😛