MacOS X building instructions

[kattkieru]

Heya all,

I figured I'd keep this going with my experience, in case someone's listening.

I built Xara without any difficulties at all, first try, by following the XCode instructions on the site. Now, I'm running XCode 2.3 on a PowerBook G4 (1.25 gig of ram) with fink 0.80 and OSX 10.4.7. Because of Blender I also have my gcc set to v3.3; this might make a difference.

Anyway, compiled fine with very few issues; the biggest problem was that I ran out of hard disk space. (After building, the total size of all compiled object files and the executable is 1.84 gig. That's insane.) Lemme hit you up with a few screen shots:

http://ministryofdoom.org/cloud/xara...25/splash1.jpg
http://ministryofdoom.org/cloud/xara...n-windows1.jpg
http://ministryofdoom.org/cloud/xara...lock-file1.jpg

First run was much as stated above -- I got windows, and the menus are built, but Xara->About did nothing and any attempt to use a tool caused a crash. On reload of the program I got the lock file message above. I tried deleting the .xara-xtreme folder and restarting, but that didn't seem to have any effect.

I get the imagemagick error on every load, but I only got the font error on first load. Also, I'd like to attach the console output:

[Debug] 21:09:58: Launching: convert
[Debug] 21:09:58: wxMacExecute Bad bundle: convert
[Debug] 21:09:58: pid=22040
[Debug] 21:09:58: no task_for_pid()
[Debug] 21:09:58: Process ended
[Debug] 21:10:30: Unrecognized accel key 'NUMPAD 1', accel string ignored.
[Debug] 21:10:30: Unrecognized accel key 'NUMPAD 1', accel string ignored.
[Debug] 21:10:30: Unrecognized accel key 'NUMPAD .', accel string ignored.
[Debug] 21:10:30: Unrecognized accel key 'NUMPAD 2', accel string ignored.
[Debug] 21:10:30: Unrecognized accel key 'NUMPAD 2', accel string ignored.
[Debug] 21:10:30: Unrecognized accel key 'NUMPAD *', accel string ignored.
[Debug] 21:10:55: ../src/mac/carbon/bitmap.cpp(229): assert "m_rawAccessCount == 0" failed.
[Debug] 21:22:56: Launching: convert
[Debug] 21:22:56: wxMacExecute Bad bundle: convert
[Debug] 21:22:56: pid=22047
[Debug] 21:22:56: Successfully added notification to the runloop
[Debug] 21:22:56: Process ended
[Debug] 21:23:47: Launching: convert
[Debug] 21:23:47: wxMacExecute Bad bundle: convert
[Debug] 21:23:47: pid=22057
[Debug] 21:23:47: Successfully added notification to the runloop
[Debug] 21:24:36: Process ended
Aug 25 21:24:36 starbuck crashdump[22058]: XaraLX crashed
Aug 25 21:24:38 starbuck crashdump[22058]: crash report written to: /Users/*****/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/XaraLX.crash.log

Some of that's repeated from multiple launches. The thing eating up all processor cycles seems to be the crash reporter; let it run long enough and Xara crashes properly, with the log written out. For the curious the log from the above is available at http://ministryofdoom.org/cloud/xara....crash.log.zip -- wasn't sure if people wanted me attaching it here.

Things about the build that I noticed right off the bat:
- Two windows -- wxWindows is attempting to set up an MDI interface which is basically not possible / not preferred on the Mac. Once it stops crashing and starts displaying icons that's the first thing that needs to be fixed.
- The icons -- is that part of the endian troubles that were mentioned? I thought I'd read that the icons are 32-bit .png files, in which case endian troubles don't make any sense. (I've compiled the same code using libpng on both PC and Mac and run across no problems.) Unless the icons are put into those .xar files? I haven't really given it more than a five-minute look.
- The splash screen says Linux Edition. Mac version should say Mac Edition, in my opinion. (I won't go into how the color scheme makes me think of the good old CGA days, either. ^_^; )

Anyway, I'd like to play with it more. Where's a good place to start for Mac folks? Are there any code primers?

~ Charles

[abligh]

Heya all,

I figured I'd keep this going with my experience, in case someone's listening.

I built Xara without any difficulties at all, first try, by following the XCode instructions on the site. Now, I'm running XCode 2.3 on a PowerBook G4 (1.25 gig of ram) with fink 0.80 and OSX 10.4.7. Because of Blender I also have my gcc set to v3.3; this might make a difference.

Great! It should compile with gcc 3.3 and gcc 4.x just fine.

Heya all,

First run was much as stated above -- I got windows, and the menus are built, but Xara->About did nothing and any attempt to use a tool caused a crash. On reload of the program I got the lock file message above. I tried deleting the .xara-xtreme folder and restarting, but that didn't seem to have any effect.

Don't worry about the lockfile message (that's probably rerunning the program). Ditto the ImageMagick message is harmless (except to the extent you want more import filters).

If it locks up when you use a tool, that's normally a symptom of not running from the package.

Heya all,

[Debug] 21:09:58: Launching: convert
[Debug] 21:09:58: wxMacExecute Bad bundle: convert

OK so that sounds like the source of the ImageMagick problem. I wonder why wxMacExecute needs convert to be a bundle.

Heya all,

Things about the build that I noticed right off the bat:
- Two windows -- wxWindows is attempting to set up an MDI interface which is basically not possible / not preferred on the Mac. Once it stops crashing and starts displaying icons that's the first thing that needs to be fixed.

It does whatever wxWidgets does with a wxMDIWindow on the Mac (at the moment). This isn't intended to be a permanent proposition...

Heya all,

- The icons -- is that part of the endian troubles that were mentioned? I thought I'd read that the icons are 32-bit .png files, in which case endian troubles don't make any sense. (I've compiled the same code using libpng on both PC and Mac and run across no problems.) Unless the icons are put into those .xar files? I haven't really given it more than a five-minute look.

Yes that's odd, especially as other people have got the icons working on the Mac.

What happens is a script called buildresources.pl is run which makes a zip file (called "resources.xrs") containing all the png files. This is then converted to an .h file (don't ask) with an array of all the bytes in the zip file and bound into the executable. wxWidgets contains a VFS like thing (wxFileSystem) which can be used to load files from it. Somewhere or other this process is failing. However, the resource file itself is clearly being build OK, because the xrc (XML) for the bar definitions is in there (also loaded through the wxFileSystem) as are the strings. Somewhere or other the bitmaps (only) are failing to load. The relevant file is wxOil/camresource.cpp if you want a poke around.

Heya all,

- The splash screen says Linux Edition. Mac version should say Mac Edition, in my opinion. (I won't go into how the color scheme makes me think of the good old CGA days, either. ^_^; )

Right now it says Linux Edition even if it's run on FreeBSD. That's just a matter of putting in a different bitmap.

Heya all,

Anyway, I'd like to play with it more. Where's a good place to start for Mac folks? Are there any code primers?

www.xaraxtreme.org and look at the "Developers" section. If you are debugging bitmap loading, look specifically at the section marked "Resource System". Also, the -dev mailing list is pretty friendly.

Alex

[kattkieru]

OK so that sounds like the source of the ImageMagick problem. I wonder why wxMacExecute needs convert to be a bundle.

Yeah, I have 6.18 installed with Fink, but I haven't gone and tried to get the two working yet.

You mentioned bundles -- I ran the executable outside the bundle. Trying to run it from within the bundle simply didn't work.

It does whatever wxWidgets does with a wxMDIWindow on the Mac (at the moment). This isn't intended to be a permanent proposition...

I hope I didn't sound rude; I sometimes come off as more acidic than I intend over text. I just mean that the Mac will need its own set of rules for that, as MDI is the one thing that doesn't port. Photoshop's a good example-- MDI on PC, but it uses those... weird window types (the ones that are only visible when the program has focus, I forget the name right now) for everything else.

I also assume that the people behind Xara already know this. ^_^;

Yes that's odd, especially as other people have got the icons working on the Mac. What happens is a script called buildresources.pl is run which makes a zip file (called "resources.xrs") containing all the png files. This is then converted to an .h file (don't ask) with an array of all the bytes in the zip file and bound into the executable. wxWidgets contains a VFS like thing (wxFileSystem) which can be used to load files from it. Somewhere or other this process is failing. However, the resource file itself is clearly being build OK, because the xrc (XML) for the bar definitions is in there (also loaded through the wxFileSystem) as are the strings. Somewhere or other the bitmaps (only) are failing to load. The relevant file is wxOil/camresource.cpp if you want a poke around.

That's really interesting... Stranger still, I changed PRELOAD_BITMAPS to 1 in cameresource.cpp and the program now loads and exits properly. I also seem to have some icons loading:

http://ministryofdoom.org/cloud/xara...ome-icons1.jpg

I get the message "No handler found for image type" twice now on each startup; that's a new one.

If I mouseover the icons, the icons appear perfectly, though. That wasn't the case before, so for whatever reason the issue is in the generation of those grey icons.

I'm going to keep playing. One more note that should be added to the Mac notes -- the project file comes with ZeroLink turned off, and turning it on actually seems to make the program load faster.

Oh, now that the debugger is loaded, the crash when clicking on the canvas comes from wxWindowBase::ScreenToClient(), at DoScreenToClient(). I think I'll leave that one alone for a moment; if you don't click, the program allows a graceful exit.

If you crash the program out, on subsequent reloads it always crashes in CCamApp::HandleKeyPress (camelot.cpp line 1311). This continues happening until you either relink the program or close and reopen XCode. I think it also happens when you hit run, but then switch immediately to another program before Xara has a chance to load.

Oh, and since you're the same Alex who wrote this code, I can't thank you enough for how beautiful and well-commented it is. This is the first time, ever, for me where I downloaded an open-source project and was able to step through the program flow without some sort of Rosetta stone. (Especially one written by a commercial software vendor.) Kudos! A lot of it's over my head, and I've only used wxWindows once before, but it's still very followable with grep and a cup of coffee. ^_^