OS X port status?

[PlanetMongo]

Hate to keep bringing this up, but I don't see an OS X version up for download, is there any word on the status?  I'm picking up a old B&W G3/400 soon on the cheap and would like to move some of my development efforts over to it whilst I learn OS X.  

Thanks in advance and sorry to inconvenience.

[swpalmer]

The OpenGL stuff is mostly working.  Gregory Pierce is working on the input.

It would be great if someone could write some sort of unit tests for different aspects of OpenAL, OpenGL, and Input.  Small things that test just the very basics.  Of the current examples in CVS only the most basic Polygon*.java examples run on OS X at the moment.  The others seem to depend on the input stuff being complete, and where are the audio examples?

[elias]

More specific tests are located in src/java/org/lwjgl/test, including some audio tests.

- elias

[swpalmer]

Ah cool...

There should be an Ant task to build the tests.  I'll try to dig into it a bit more this weekend.

I actually wonder about installing OpenAL... on the Mac is isn't as simple as including a DLL in the same directory as LWJGL libs.  The "Framework" should be installed in a standard location (think System32).

[swpalmer]

Just fiddle with things and ran some audio tests... well at least it is making sounds  and they are coming from the correct speakers (left/right wise).

But the sample is noise.. I suspect maybe a byte order problem loading the wave data, as Mac is Big Endian...  I'll investigate more this weekend.

I have to work out how OpenAL is installed, as when it installed to the default location the library was unable to load with teh code I had and i couldn't work anything out.. I had to copy it to a system folder to get it to load properly...  I'm so new to the Mac environment that this sort of debbugging is a slow process.  But I trudge along...

Chatted breifly with Gregory Pierce this morning... he has not had time to work on LWJGL recently because of work projects.  I know the feeling. I think perhaps next week he may get back to it.

[jbanes]

I have to work out how OpenAL is installed, as when it installed to the default location the library was unable to load with teh code I had and i couldn't work anything out.. I had to copy it to a system folder to get it to load properly...  I'm so new to the Mac environment that this sort of debbugging is a slow process.  But I trudge along...

Just to throw an idea at you, I know that OSX comes with some special stuff to package a program+support files all together. I'm not sure if that's useful at your level (library developer), but a few quick instructions on proper packaging for game writers may make all the difference in the world.

[DCoder]

...OSX comes with some special stuff to package a program+support files all together.

This is a really cool feature. Technically, it's called a "bundle" and there's a bunch of documentation about it at Apple's website. A bundle is just a folder with a specific extension to its name (.bundle, .framework, .app, etc) that Apple's window manager treats as a functional unit of executable code. Fundamentally, this just means that the library code can be built as .dylib files (think ".so") and placed inside the "application bundle" (think "smart directory") along with any other resources, without too much hassle at all.

Once the LWJGL is functional on the Mac, it shouldn't be difficult at all to build a project template for Project Builder (Apple's IDE) that automatically does all the right things to make the app just work.

-daniel

[princec]

What sort of files are the ones that System.loadLibrary() loads on the Mac? Are these .dylibs? Or .so?

Cas

[DCoder]

What sort of files are the ones that System.loadLibrary() loads on the Mac? Are these .dylibs? Or .so?

According to this link, System.loadLibrary("hello") can load either a "Bundle" or a dylib. If it's a dylib, it can either be libhello.dylib or libhello.jnilib. To build libhello.jnilib from hello.o and hola.o, the following code is used:

cc -dynamiclib -o libhello.jnilib hola.o hello.o -framework JavaVM

-daniel

[psiegel]

This thread has been quiet lately.  Is there any news on the Mac port?  Are the people who were working on this still working on this, or has it stagnated?

Paul

[elias]

Dunno, DCoder was the last guy on the project after swpalmer and gregory more or less left us for jogl *snif*.

I wish I had a macosx to hack on. Or that the OS came for free like linux. I really really hate we don't have a working macosx port yet.

- elias

[swpalmer]

I'm sorry - just don't have enough time to spend on it.  I was planning on helping out Gregory with smaller things.  I might be able to get OpenAL support done on my own.  Gregory was working on the input side of things last I heard.

It's just with the limited time and the fact that I haven't done native programming on the Mac before (or in Objective C - which might make more sense for for some things on the Mac), I'm not really in a good position to lead any OS X development.  I will certainly help out with testing and hunting down some bugs.

Since JOGL isn't available on OS X for those of us that don't have the preview of the next OS version (OS X 10.3 'Panther'), I'm actually more interested at the moment in finishing off the LWJGL port.

P.S.  I also don't have time to scan these forums as well as javagaming.org and some others.. so the best placed to yell at me is javagaming.org which I check daily.

[DCoder]

Dunno, DCoder was the last guy on the project

:oops:I'm still around. I work on LWJGL as I can, but that's in my limited spare time. This is an unpaying gig, and as far as unpaying gigs go, it's very low on my list of priorities. Trust me, I DO want to see LWJGL on OS X, so I will not give up, it just takes lots of time.

For the record, extended documentation of the binary (JNI) interface would definitely be helpful. Although it looks like alot of that interface are just direct pass-throughs for specific features...

My kids will be at their grandparents this weekend, so I may be able to dedicate a few cycles then.

Oh, and did I mention that I was able to finally get a full compile completed. It didn't link due to what appears to be an overzealous attempt at optimization -- multiple symbol declarations. More on that once I resolve it.

Also, the OpenAL stuff should be absolutely simple, since OpenAL has an OS X target in their make system (I've got libopenal.dylib sitting on my HD to prove it). Mostly I'm working on the graphics and trying to decipher the code that's there.

-daniel

[patrox]

Hi, I'm patrox ( yeah the PTK guy )

I can probably help on some stuff.  :roll:


pat.

[DCoder]

I can probably help on some stuff.

Hey pat! Glad to hear from you. I've done a very little amount of work, but mostly that's been decyphering the existing sources and trying to get a macos build working.

Pull down CVS and see what you can make of it... I believe somewhere around here (this thread?) I have a patch to part of the autoconf stuff to get some of it working, but the main thing I've been doing (in my less than copius spare time) is to get a pbx file put together that's not broken (ie, has all the right libs, includes, and links). If you don't find the patch, drop me a separate e-mail (do you still have it?) and I'll tar up what I"ve got for you.

Also, the previous OSX help appeared to be relying on veclib for a few things, and as soon as I got the build working, I was planning on refactoring that part so that an altivec proc was not required (which limits functional use to only G4 procs).

Let me know how you go. I'm deep in the middle of two different paying clients (in addition to my day job) so I'm incognito for about another month or so...

-daniel
edit: HERE is the link to the thread with the autoconf changes I made. They are not in CVS, as far as I'm aware, and they may or may not actually be helpful...