Mac build status

[courier]

Intel mac package available, http://ecglaf.naegling.net/~ggould/ufoai-2.2.1-macosx-i386.dmg

I tested it (very) briefly, and it seemed to work (much more smoothly than the 2.2, probably because of the more recent STL)

Current Mac makefiles are unusably buggy; diffs to make them more useful will follow when I have a few minutes to figure out the right fixes.  Wiki updates as well -- I can simplify the mac build instructions there a bit.

I haven't built a PPC mac package because I have no way to test it.  When I have a bit of time I'll build one and ask around on the forum for PPC testers -- we definitely shouldn't post an "official" 2.2.1 PPC mac release until we have some confidence that it will work.

Gotta run!

[courier]

Turns out that the current build system doesn't support cross-compilation as well as the wiki implies.  For the moment I can't build a PPC version from my Intel mac until I unearth the correct options, so we're Intel-only for now on the mac.

I've submitted a patch with the changes I needed to make mac builds work.

[OneHundredTUs]

I understand that the PPC mac community is small and getting smaller (new macs all come with intel processors). However it is admirable and generous of you to keep trying to bring us Power PC users along for the ride even though you have no means to test your PPC builds.
I will of course download and play any new build available. I have been playing version 2.2 for a while (on my mac and on my Win XP machine) and find it tremendously faithful and better in most ways than X-Com UFO/TFTD.

Eventually I hope to buy a new mac to replace my iBook G4, and will of course have no choice but to buy an intel. However, it would be a great legacy to have a completed UFO:AI in existence for PPC macs, and I would like to help this happen. I would like to see a complete, final-release UFO:AI for PPC macs!

I have no coding experience  , I can really offer only playtesting and bug reporting. Honestly, it seems like you are nearly there at this point.

[courier]

I'm planning on trying this weekend to get cross-compiling working -- the instructions on the wiki weren't quite right, but I think I'm getting the hang of it.  I'll try to have something you can test by the end of the weekend.

(Of course a universal binary would be ideal, but that seems to be even more complicated.)

[Dain]

Hi.

I have a mac PPC and some programming experience, but I don't know how to buil a .dmg package. I can still test things if you want. But I don't come often on that forum, so if you want to contact me, it'll be easier on irc ( #ufo:ai on freenode, my nick being DainDwarf there )

[Mattn]

i'll try to mirror that package - but the download speed is very slow - so it could take some time

[Chriswriter90]

What's a "PPC Mac" and How is it different from my 2+ yr. old Mac Book Pro from The Apple Store?

Edit:
Thank you BTAxis, for answering my Question (His post is Below)

[BTAxis]

PPC is a hardware architecture. Macs used to be built with that hardware until Apple shifted to Intel chips, which have certain advantages, mainly in the field of compatibility.

[tchristney]

Making a universal binary isn't that hard. There are a few patches in the build/*.mk files (removing some incompatible options) that I haven't had the chance to get configure to work out automagically. Using MacPorts instead of fink is a huge step forwards, since fink doesn't support universal cross-compiles and MacPorts does... Also the configure script is able to find MacPorts libraries but not the fink ones.

I picked up the abandoned mac port a while ago and moved it somewhat forward. Unfortunately my real life is close to full and I don't follow the project as closely as I used to. That said, I would love to share what I have learned and am able to build the universal binaries without problem. I just need notification of new releases so that my tardiness in discovering updates doesn't leave my fellow mac users in the lurch. I have a forum account, AIM/ICQ and a sf.net account - one of those mechanisms just needs to end up in my email inbox and I'm good to go.

[tchristney]

Grab my latest patch - it uses autoconf to automatically set the compiler options to create universal binaries. I don't think that it will work with fink for the reasons I mention above. I have chosen to set the default to create universal binaries, but the default is really easy to change (i.e. using --disable-universal option to configure should allow it to be used with fink.)

I have generated a universal binary DMG, but need to wait for Mattn to upload it to the sf.net site.

Interestingly, I never tried running "make macinstaller" before. I always just ran "make" from within src/ports/macosx/installer which took some work to get it going in a way that I was reasonably happy with. FWIW, the macfixlibs.pl is not my creation... IMO perl is evil and it took me a while to grok what the hell was going on in there.

[Mattn]

thank you very much - will share it asap

[stevenjackson]

tchristney

So now that you have reworked some of those scripts, is it better to use the make macinstaller or do the make in src/ports/macosx/installer?

I'm happy to use the least error prone method until i'm comfortable with the build process.

[ponkan]

make macinstaller, even after the patch, doesn't quite output a completely working binary -- the maps that got downloaded aren't the right ones for 2.3, at least that's what it seemed like to me. Binary works perfectly, until it's time to start a mission. Dropship will land, screen goes black, nothing happens. Pulling up the console says that it can't find the required map. So until they upload a mappack for 2.3 (or fix the Makefile to point to the right URL), compiling the maps is the way you'll have to go.

[tchristney]

Which means running make or make bundle from src/ports/macosx/installer. I don't run make macinstaller but probably should just to make sure it runs properly in all cases. FWIW, all of this stuff was in a terrible state when I started work on it. I've been chipping away at the problems but haven't got everywhere yet!