MacOS X building instructions

[gpetty]

Whilst having 2 automake's on your system isn't generally a good thing, and you have probably fixed the immediate problem, for future reference you can probably do (under bash, I don't know csh):
AUTOMAKE=/path/to/automake AUTOCONF=/path/to/autoconf AUTORECONF=/path/to/autoreconf (etc.) ./configure <options>

I know the FreeBSD guys use this.

Alex

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll admit that before this particular effort, I had never even consciously encountered Automake and its kin before. There was make, and for a while there was imake, and then I took a long break from installing anything but Linux RPMs.

[gpetty]

Update: After clearing out the supplied Wx-widgets 2.5 and re-running config, autoreconf, etc., I ran make again in the XaraLX directory and ran into the same error as before, which I ended up solving with the following kludge:

% sudo ln -s /Users/gpetty/wx/v263/build-unicode-debug/lib/libwx_macud-2.6.0.dylib /usr/local/lib/libwx_macud-2.6.0.dylib

That seemed to work, as make then proceeded to run for a very long time, successfully making several large libraries (kernel, tools, etc.). But then this happened:

ranlib libTools.a
Making all in po
Makefile:431: warning: overriding commands for target `XaraLX.pot-update'
Makefile:155: warning: ignoring old commands for target `XaraLX.pot-update'
Makefile:431: warning: overriding commands for target `XaraLX.pot'
Makefile:184: warning: ignoring old commands for target `XaraLX.pot'
sed -e '/^#/d' remove-potcdate.sin > t-remove-potcdate.sed
mv t-remove-potcdate.sed remove-potcdate.sed
make[1]: *** No rule to make target `../wxOil/xrc/xaralx.po', needed by `XaraLX.pot'. Stop.
make: *** [all-recursive] Error 1

Note that there don't seem to be source code or object files of any kind in ../wxOil/xrc

Any assistance will be greatly appreciated ... I feel I must be getting close.

[abligh]

Any assistance will be greatly appreciated ... I feel I must be getting close.

Run configure with the following additional commands:
--disable-international --disable-svnversion

The former will disable building of the internationalization resources (your resultant file will still be internationalizable). --disable-svnversion will disable building a header with the svn version number in (sometimes causes problems).

The next challenge will be at link stage.

I hope after all this you aren't going to be too disappointed when it doesn't work as well as on Linux. We have some endian problems we know we need to sort out on ppc MacOS, plus (no doubt) some other issues.

I don't quite understand why you need the symbolic link: if it's finding the correct wx-config, then
wx-config --libs
(running it with the right wx-config) should return a fully specified path to the correct library.

Alex

[gpetty]

Run configure with the following additional commands:
--disable-international --disable-svnversion

The former will disable building of the internationalization resources (your resultant file will still be internationalizable). --disable-svnversion will disable building a header with the svn version number in (sometimes causes problems).

The next challenge will be at link stage.

The above options seem to have done the trick. The make completed without additional errors.

The resulting executable is huge: 784 MB. I've tried executing it, but so far all it's done is generate a couple dozen lines of debugging info. Although it hasn't terminated (it stills shows up in ps), there's no sign of life; even the debug comments have stopped. I'm uploading a file with the captured debug output, in case anyone can make sense of it.

I hope after all this you aren't going to be too disappointed when it doesn't work as well as on Linux. We have some endian problems we know we need to sort out on ppc MacOS, plus (no doubt) some other issues.

I have no experience with the Linux version .. I only learned of Xara two days ago, but it sounded like a potential alternative to commercial programs like Adobe Illustrator. I had already shelled out for the Windows version of AI and was reluctant to do it again now that I've switched to the Mac world.

Re endian: I'm attempting to build Xara LX on an Intel-based Macbook. I assume the endianness is the same as for Linux on Intel machines.

I don't quite understand why you need the symbolic link: if it's finding the correct wx-config, then
wx-config --libs
(running it with the right wx-config) should return a fully specified path to the correct library.

Alex

I don't understand it either. It seems to be finding everything else wx-related. But it definitely halts when it can't find the one library in /usr/lib, and creating the one symbolic link as described ended the impasse.

[abligh]

The above options seem to have done the trick. The make completed without additional errors.

The resulting executable is huge: 784 MB. I've tried executing it, but so far all it's done is generate a couple dozen lines of debugging info. Although it hasn't terminated (it stills shows up in ps), there's no sign of life; even the debug comments have stopped. I'm uploading a file with the captured debug output, in case anyone can make sense of it.

The size is probably debugging symbols. Mine is "only" 147Mb.

In order to execute it successfully, you need to put it into a MacOS "bundle". I think this is pretty easy (some sort of mkdir with permissions and a copy). I'm not sure of the details, but I think it's something like this:
mkdir -p XaraLX.app/Contents/MacOS
cp xaralx XaraLX.app/Contents/MacOS

then
open XaraLX.app

I have no experience with the Linux version .. I only learned of Xara two days ago, but it sounded like a potential alternative to commercial programs like Adobe Illustrator. I had already shelled out for the Windows version of AI and was reluctant to do it again now that I've switched to the Mac world.

Re endian: I'm attempting to build Xara LX on an Intel-based Macbook. I assume the endianness is the same as for Linux on Intel machines.

Yes it is. You should have less difficulty here. I'm just saying it's early stages building for the Mac. But don't get me wrong, we appreciate people building it and testing it!

(you can, BTW, build wx for gtk if you install gtk on the Mac. Xtreme should then build fine but you will have a gtk interface not a Mac interface which is not what you want I presume...).

Alex

[gpetty]

The size is probably debugging symbols. Mine is "only" 147Mb.

In order to execute it successfully, you need to put it into a MacOS "bundle". I think this is pretty easy (some sort of mkdir with permissions and a copy). I'm not sure of the details, but I think it's something like this:
mkdir -p XaraLX.app/Contents/MacOS
cp xaralx XaraLX.app/Contents/MacOS

then
open XaraLX.app

Three steps forward, one(?) step back.

Now that I understand what a bundle is ... it turns out the build automatically creates a folder XaraLX.app and associated subdirectories in the build directory. So all I had to do is mv the executable to ~/XaraLX/XaraLX.app/Contents/MacOS. I then used finder to open it, and voila ... it started up with a normal GUI. Initially it complained about something with fonts and then about not having ImageMagick 6.0, but these seemed not to be fatal errors.

But then disaster .. I simply clicked on the drawing window, and the program complained about a "very serious error" and said that it would have to close. Fortunately, it gave me the opportunity to generate an error report, which I have attached here.

(you can, BTW, build wx for gtk if you install gtk on the Mac. Xtreme should then build fine but you will have a gtk interface not a Mac interface which is not what you want I presume...).

Alex

I'm too new to Macs to have any interface loyalty .. and i have no idea what the gtk interface is like. My prior experience is primarily with the Windows GUI and the Unix command line. If I continue to have problems getting a working Mac interface, I might like to take a look at the gtk version.

[gpetty]

Incidentally, the complaint about missing ImageMagick 6.0 seems spurious. I've investigated and found that I have exactly one version of ImageMagick installed --- version 6.1.8 -- and the executables are present in /sw/bin.

I'm not sure how to tell Xtreme to look for it there.

[abligh]

Initially it complained about something with fonts

That would be the "we haven't written the font manager interface for the Mac yet" bug :-) (actually I'm not sure why it shouldn't work if you have pango installed, as that's all we use...)

and then about not having ImageMagick 6.0, but these seemed not to be fatal errors.

Harmless

But then disaster .. I simply clicked on the drawing window, and the program complained about a "very serious error" and said that it would have to close. Fortunately, it gave me the opportunity to generate an error report, which I have attached here.

OK, interesting. I would guess that this is CCamView::GetFrame() (in HandleDragScrolling) returnning a NULL. That method is inherited from wxView, and as far as I can tell it isn't meant to do that (ever) for an MDI-esque wxView.

What happens if you start it from the command line (with Open I suppose) and pass it one of the designs? Does it render anything useful?

It might be better to have this discussion on the dev list (see http://www.xaraxtreme.org/community/) by the way, there are more Mac folks there. I'm not sure they are a huge amount further forward than you though...

Alex

[BPFowler]

... I simply clicked on the drawing window, and the program complained about a "very serious error" and said that it would have to close.

This is Bug 935 "APPLICATION CLOSE"

I can post a patch for this tomorrow morning.

Ben.

[BPFowler]

The resulting executable is huge: 784 MB.

The executable is huge because it contains debug info. I was hoping that the latest Mac gcc compilers would use DWARF and the debug info would take up less space, but it looks as if one of my assumptions is wrong somewhere. I too have a have binary of about that size - probably over 800 MB actually, which I use for debugging, and strip to fit on a CD.

... it definitely halts when it can't find the one library in /usr/lib, ...

You could look for every configuration file with a path starting /usr/lib and delete those files. The configure system should re-create them with correct paths

Ben