Removing the Mac installers from downloads?

[peterl94]

Hey guys,

I don't use FreeCAD on a Mac myself, so I haven't been really motivated to provide regular builds. However, now that there seems to be more demand for them, I would like to volunteer to be the Mac OS X maintainer. I would take responsibility for providing regular builds and fixing Mac specific bugs. Unfortunately though, it will probably be at least a month before I will have the time to do regular builds, but I will try doing another build tomorrow.

I'm pretty sure the last build that I uploaded is way more stable than the 0.13 version (probably just because it is newer) and it is a smaller package. The only drawback is that it requires X11, which was a dependency pulled in by OCE. (Though, I discovered later that it is actually possible to compile all the needed OCE modules without X11). One more problem is that it can't be embedded into a different python program, without changing the RPATHs of the libraries.

I haven't updated the wiki instructions for building on a Mac, because my setup is highly customized and I wouldn't recommend it. FreeCAD actually builds fine a Mac. The hard part is creating an application bundle that users can run from anywhere on there system. It would be very easy to provide a Unix style install, but I don't think Mac users would like starting FreeCAD from terminal

I'm planing on making the "LibPack manager" I'm currently developing, work on Mac as well, which means I will be able to easily provide precompiled mac libraries. This way it will be easy for other people to compile on Mac.

So if you can hold on a bit longer, more Mac stuff is coming!

~ Peter

[jriegel]

great news!
We can give you upload permissions on the sf.net file service in order to upload MacPackages....

Do you have a sf.net account?

[peterl94]

Yes I do. I have the same username as on here. Do you need my email address as well?

[NormandC]

I would like to volunteer to be the Mac OS X maintainer.

I was hoping you would Peter, but I didn't want to pressure you.

I'm pretty sure the last build that I uploaded is way more stable than the 0.13 version (probably just because it is newer)

I could not try it of course (I don't have a Mac) but that's the impression I've had from people who've installed it. I've been systematically pointing Mac users to your build for a while now, here and on other forums.

And I am sure that it's not only because it's newer that it's more stable. For example the Drawing templates are missing from one of the old builds.

The only drawback is that it requires X11, which was a dependency pulled in by OCE.

Which is the only reason why I haven't pushed for your current build's inclusion on SF. I didn't know how it is handled by the OS.

[peterl94]

Okay, that took longer then expected, but I now have a mac build of 0.14.3052. It does not depend on the X11 libs. One thing though, I only built PySide, so people won't be able to use the Ship module.

Should I uploaded it to my Google Drive, or can I have upload access to sourceforge?

[jmaustpc]

Okay, that took longer then expected, but I now have a mac build of 0.14.3052. It does not depend on the X11 libs. One thing though, I only built PySide, so people won't be able to use the Ship module.

Should I uploaded it to my Google Drive, or can I have upload access to sourceforge?

Hi Peter
This matter is not for me to decide however if you are interested in my opinion, I would suggest that we should have no uploads to SourceForge unless the build is complete and perfect.

Having said that, I really appreciate your efforts and I do agree that almost anything is better than nothing for the Mac guys.

Ship is a specialise workbench but it is a really good/interesting one. Also if we don't have it in the Mac build then we are back to the MAc guys having a second class FreeCAD experience .....

But I would definitely suggest Mac people use your build until an "official" complete build could be made. So perhaps your Google Drive is the best?

But as I said the decision is not mine to make and other could have an equally valid and opposite point of view.

Once again thank you for rescuing the Mac build, I think it is important for FreeCAD to work on Mac and I recognise that you are really doing this for the "greater good" as you don't even need it yourself. So well done!

Jim

[jriegel]

Good!

I added you as a release technician! I will send you a personal messages with additional information.

[yorik]

Thanks a lot for your efforts Peter, as you saw, a proper Mac build was badly needed, and I think it will make a huge difference on the final "polish" of FreeCAD... I wouldn't worry too much about not having "perfect" packages, the same happened for a long time with other platforms, and it takes time to iron out all the little issues. It's quite amazing anyway how fast you came with all main issues solved. Congrats, and big thanks!

I don't think it is necessary to make new builds very often (windows builds are made, what, 6-7 times a year?), and before an "official" release we'd anyway tell you, so we can release a "stable" build with same rev number on all platforms. So I guess if you plan to keep doing this for a while, you can really manage it as you see fit and time permitting...

[peterl94]

I'll make sure the release build is fully featured, but in this case I figured the Ship workbench will be switched to PySide soon, and then I can just do another build. Also, I'm thinking that if it is on sourceforge, it will be more likely that people will download it.

[jriegel]

You need at least several packages to iron out problems, so a continuous build at the beginning is quit appropriated. Sf.net shows around 700 downloads a week for the old Mac package, so you will have feedback quit fast. The aim should be to stabilize your package so its bug free when the time is come to release 0.14.

There is a mechanism in the sf.net file service which points Mac users to a special package. So if sf.net detects a mac browser we can decide which file the user gets pointed on. Also we can link a special package on our landing page.

Did you test already to upload to sf.net via ftp?