Mac OS X universal build for testing

[laszlo]

Screen shot:


Disk image: http://heliacal.net/~solar/bitcoin/Bitcoin-MacOSX-universal-svn-75-20100419.dmg

Installation: Run directly from disk image or drag to Applications folder

I have not tested ppc so it probably doesn't work.  I got it to run on 10.5 and 10.6 64-bit Intel though.

This is based on svn but the daemon/commandline mode isn't working yet, only the GUI.

Please post any problems.  If it crashes I'll try to help but screen shots, logs or crash dumps might be needed to figure it out.

Thanks
Laszlo

[BitcoinFX]

Nice work !

I have a spare Mini Mac that I can test and run it on

I need to re-install it though, so will probably be up and running after the weekend...

[fergalish]

This is working for me.  There are no menus though.

[laszlo]

Do you think you can send me a screen shot with the menu problem?

Command-Shift-3 will put a screen dump .png file on your desktop

Also it might help to post your system info.. In /Applications/Utilities run Terminal.app and enter this command to dump the system info into a file:

Code:

system_profiler > ~/Desktop/system_profiler.txt

That makes a text file on your desktop.  You can attach the file to the forum or just email it to me: solar@heliacal.net

Thanks,
Laszlo

[generica]

Thanks to the developers who are working on this port!

Some notes as Mac-ish geek:

1) No way to hide the application.  I can minimize it but I hate that, and would prefer to hide it completely.  For now I just stuff it on another desktop workspace.

2) The "About" function in the Application menu doesn't show any info.  Makes the program seem a bit fishy to the uninformed.  Took me a while to notice there was a separate Help -> About that worked.

3) In the Bitcoin Application menu there is a Preferences option, which doesn't function.  The "Settings" menu entirely should technically be accessible via this location instead of in its own application in order to conform with Mac application desktop usability standards (i.e. what most users expect). Not a huge deal for now.

4) You can eliminate the File menu entirely, as there is a Quit option in the Application menu (the "Bitcoin" menu).

These small interface changes would make the app fit in to the average Mac user's desktop quite nicely.  I am VERY impressed by the speed of this version vs. running it in WINE as I have been on my iMac.  

For what it's worth, it is not runnable on my PPC G4 tower, maybe instead of being bundled as a Universal binary it can be bundled as an Intel binary only, if PPC is not going to be supported.  (Why would it..)

These are not criticisms at all just observations!  I love that there is a native app coming to the OS X platform.  I can't wait for the iPhone app ;-)

-generica

PS: I created a forum account several weeks ago and was lurking, and reading the updates, but my account got deleted!  Probably I looked like a spammer to the forum admins.  So here is proof that I am not. 

Disk image: http://heliacal.net/~solar/bitcoin/Bitcoin-MacOSX-universal-svn-75-20100419.dmg

Installation: Run directly from disk image or drag to Applications folder

I have not tested ppc so it probably doesn't work.  I got it to run on 10.5 and 10.6 64-bit Intel though.

This is based on svn but the daemon/commandline mode isn't working yet, only the GUI.

Please post any problems.  If it crashes I'll try to help but screen shots, logs or crash dumps might be needed to figure it out.

Thanks
Laszlo

[laszlo]

Glad to hear someone besides me is interested in using Bitcoin on Mac OS

I made a mistake with the PPC version that's in the binary - it's flagged for G5 only.  I didn't have a way to test it.. I have an iBook G4 but I'm happy with 10.4 on it but it was easier to just build wxWidgets for 10.5/10.6 without support for 10.4.  If I can get the iBook to boot off an external drive somehow I can install 10.5 to test with.. maybe a firewire drive would work.  I use 10.6 Intel primarily and that is what I built with but I would like to figure out how to make it work on PPC as well.

The way Satoshi wrote this, he is using a library called wxWidgets to make it a cross-platform application.  It allows the programmer to create kind of a lowest-common-denominator generic user interface and the library takes care of the native implementation like windows, GTK or Cocoa.  I'm not sure if it's possible to get rid of the 'Bitcoin' (leftmost) menu in a Cocoa app, but it bothers me too since it doesn't 'fit in' right like a real native Cocoa app.  I'll look into it though.

Laszlo

[generica]

Glad to hear someone besides me is interested in using Bitcoin on Mac OS

You know it! 

The way Satoshi wrote this, he is using a library called wxWidgets to make it a cross-platform application.  It allows the programmer to create kind of a lowest-common-denominator generic user interface and the library takes care of the native implementation like windows, GTK or Cocoa.  I'm not sure if it's possible to get rid of the 'Bitcoin' (leftmost) menu in a Cocoa app, but it bothers me too since it doesn't 'fit in' right like a real native Cocoa app.  I'll look into it though.

I think the trick is not to get rid of the "Bitcoin" menu but instead to make use of it, the way other Cocoa apps do.  As I mentioned, both the File and Settings menu can be moved into there eventually.  I have been doing some reading about wxwidgets and it appears that these issues I am seeing have more to do with how wxwidgets is used in the code rather than bitcoin itself.  Here is a link that explains how to integrate using the Apple standard menu hooks: http://wiki.wxwidgets.org/WxMac-specific_topics

If I was a more experienced developer I would delve into this, but I am at best a mid-level scripter...

[fergalish]

The problem seems to be gone away - it now has a menu.  Perhaps it was either that I was running from terminal, or maybe that it was downloading the blocklist and didn't initialize the menus first.  Now that I have all the blocks, and am running from finder, it seems ok.

f.

Do you think you can send me a screen shot with the menu problem?

Command-Shift-3 will put a screen dump .png file on your desktop

Also it might help to post your system info.. In /Applications/Utilities run Terminal.app and enter this command to dump the system info into a file:

Code:

system_profiler > ~/Desktop/system_profiler.txt

That makes a text file on your desktop.  You can attach the file to the forum or just email it to me: solar@heliacal.net

Thanks,
Laszlo