[sword-devel] Mac build

DM Smith dmsmith at crosswire.org
Thu Apr 23 20:50:55 MST 2009


Greg,
This is close, but I think a few changes are needed to satisify Mac  
users:
1)The name should consistently be BibleTime, In the title bar it is  
bibletime (all lower case). (This shoule be easily fixed.)
2) There should be an application icon. (This should be easily fixed.  
However, Macs expect a collection of icons having 512x512 definition  
and will fill in smaller ones if not supplied. Also, will scale  
smaller ones, with less than satisfying results.)
3) It does not find any of the modules that either MacSword or  
BibleDesktop install. These both install to ~/Library/Application  
Source/Sword. (This is a biggie!!!)
4) IMHO, the layout does not at all look like a Mac application. It  
should have a Mac look and feel. Especially since the download is 38M.  
That is pretty big for a the Bible programs available on the Mac. Some  
of it has a Mac look and feel (e.g. tabs) but much of it doesn't (the  
same can probably be said of BibleDesktop). (Acceptance by Mac users  
will determine whether this is a big deal.)
5) There shouldn't be both a Preferences menu selection and a Settings  
menu. The Settings menu should go away. The Mac user won't expect that.
6) Sword should be SWORD. This is not a Mac Issue. I forget where I  
saw this, but I think it was on a tab.

I did not look into the app to see what worked and what did not. I'm  
not familiar with BT and at first glance it was not obvious how to use  
it. I couldn't figure out how to select a passage from an installed  
Bible. If it were obvious/intuitive, I would have poked around a bit.  
I think a Mac user expects that the application will help them in the  
most simplest manner to install a Bible and to use it. Simplicity of  
first use is a rule on the Mac. Depth is generally hidden for those  
that want it and dig for it.

(BTW, I'm a long time linux/solaris/unix user and windows user. Only  
recently have I been doing Mac development (3 years). So while I have  
been direct, don't take it hard. I wish you all the best!!! Manfred,  
please feel free to contradict me on my evaluation of Mac user  
expectations!)

In Him and blessings on your effort,
	DM

On Apr 23, 2009, at 10:39 PM, Greg Hellings wrote:

> DM,
>
> On Thu, Apr 23, 2009 at 6:59 PM, DM Smith <dmsmith at crosswire.org>  
> wrote:
>> I've attached a png showing how it appears. I'm not a user of BT,  
>> so I can
>> only guess that some icons are not showing up:
>
> That's exactly what I would suspect it looks like.  I've located the
> necessary Qt plugins (for those interested, on OS X I had to move the
> imageformats/ and iconengines/ directories into the plugins/ package
> with BibleTime.app/Contents) and I tested them as well as I can on my
> development machine.  You can find another copy of the disk image up
> at the previous location.  Thanks for persevering through with me! =)
>
> --Greg
>
>> -- DM
>>
>>
>>
>> On Apr 23, 2009, at 7:48 PM, Greg Hellings wrote:
>>
>>> I've now uploaded a version that doesn't require DBus.  Oddly -  
>>> when I
>>> move my /opt directory (where my development headers, libraries, etc
>>> are) out of its original location for testing, the SVG icons don't
>>> display.  But when /opt is in place, they do.  So odds are you won't
>>> be able to see icons if the program runs for you, but hopefully this
>>> time it will run.
>>>
>>> This problem seems related to the same issue we have seen on Windows
>>> XP - it seems there's a helper library somewhere that's optional  
>>> that
>>> isn't being included by my distributions that I need to track down  
>>> to
>>> get icons working.
>>>
>>> --Greg
>>>
>>> On Thu, Apr 23, 2009 at 6:11 PM, Greg Hellings <greg.hellings at gmail.com 
>>> >
>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> DM,
>>>>
>>>> Thanks - obviously the crash is somewhere in DBus.  I'm not certain
>>>> what DBus is, but I know what it isn't: native to Macs.  BibleTime
>>>> doesn't seem to need it at all, since we don't have it on Windows  
>>>> and
>>>> we can get along without it.  I'll ask the BT team if possibly we  
>>>> can
>>>> remove the dependency on the Mac side as well.
>>>>
>>>> --Greg
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Apr 23, 2009 at 6:05 PM, DM Smith <dmsmith at crosswire.org>  
>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> On Apr 23, 2009, at 6:57 PM, Greg Hellings wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> I've rebuilt the BibleTime for Mac distribution.  It should be  
>>>>>> up on
>>>>>> http://www.crosswire.org/~ghellings/bibletime/BibleTime_Mac_Beta.dmg
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This time it's a standard Drag 'n' Drop installer, and all the  
>>>>>> files
>>>>>> required *should* be included in the Application Bundle.  If  
>>>>>> you're on
>>>>>> a PPC Mac, I don't think that it will run there, seeing as I  
>>>>>> believe
>>>>>> both the executable and all the libraries are Intel-only  
>>>>>> builds.  I
>>>>>> can certainly produce a PPC/Intel build later on, once we're  
>>>>>> happy
>>>>>> that it works well.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I'll post more of the specifics on bt-devel only as per the  
>>>>>> changes I
>>>>>> had to make to the build system to get this up and running.   
>>>>>> For now,
>>>>>> let me know if there are further problems with downloading,
>>>>>> installation or operation.
>>>>>
>>>>> It is a bit nicer.
>>>>> The drag and drop worked as expected.
>>>>> It starts up just fine, but it crashes with:
>>>>> Process:         bibletime [78973]
>>>>> Path:
>>>>>  /Applications/BibleTime.app/Contents/Resources/bin/bibletime
>>>>> Identifier:      bibletime
>>>>> Version:         ??? (???)
>>>>> Code Type:       X86 (Native)
>>>>> Parent Process:  launchd [151]
>>>>>
>>>>> Date/Time:       2009-04-23 19:03:21.811 -0400
>>>>> OS Version:      Mac OS X 10.5.6 (9G55)
>>>>> Report Version:  6
>>>>>
>>>>> Exception Type:  EXC_CRASH (SIGABRT)
>>>>> Exception Codes: 0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000000
>>>>> Crashed Thread:  0
>>>>>
>>>>> Thread 0 Crashed:
>>>>> 0   libSystem.B.dylib                   0x936bbe42 __kill + 10
>>>>> 1   libSystem.B.dylib                   0x9372e23a raise + 26
>>>>> 2   libSystem.B.dylib                   0x9373a679 abort + 73
>>>>> 3   libdbus-1.3.dylib                   0x036365ce _dbus_abort +  
>>>>> 46
>>>>> 4   libdbus-1.3.dylib                   0x036323c6
>>>>> _dbus_warn_check_failed +
>>>>> 134
>>>>> 5   libdbus-1.3.dylib                   0x03632a35
>>>>> _dbus_get_local_machine_uuid_encoded + 181
>>>>> 6   libdbus-1.3.dylib                   0x03639bdb
>>>>>
> <snip>
>
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