New (and old) unfamiliar ground

[Corionis]

Would like to make ELS entirely cross-platform and inter-operable, and reasonably-well tested, for the up-coming Beta Release. See Milestones for "The Plan".

To that end a friend has lent me an older Apple laptop that I will attempt to breath life into and figure-out how to use.

I've never been a "Mac guy". However ELS was built with Java specifically because it is cross-platform. Provisions have been made in the code for macOS, but not tested. And I know many Creators use Macs.

Need to test it there and figure-out how to build a distribution .dmg for macOS - if this old system works and there aren't version issues.

Does anyone know if a MacBook Pro Retina 13" Later 2013 i7 can build .dmg files that are compatible with the latest thing from Apple? Bummer is this old system does not have an Apple account.

I'm not in a position to buy and maintain the latest Apple system for testing purposes.

So, down the proverbial Rabbit Hole I go ... again 😆

[Corionis]

If anyone had told me 6 months ago I would own a Mac I would have told them they were crazy. 😛 But after playing with that loaner I decided to buy one to "properly" develop, test and support macOS.

It is an older one deliberately. 1) is was inexpensive, 2) want to support older computers. ELS is tested on Windows 8.1 guessing some users may re-purpose old computers for (shared) back-up storage, media server, etc.

Have already made changes for Aqua so the menubar appears at the top as macOS apps do.

Working on a .dmg package and will be attempting a macOS launcher in C++ similar to the ELS Windows Launcher. It should provide an .APP-style executable and icon for the macOS user interface.

A very long test sequence is looming for macOS, Linux and Windows and interoperability between them prior to the Beta release. With the many operations and combinations it's going to take a long time. And most likely will miss nuances and use patterns.

[Corionis]

Just deployed the first round of Mac-oriented changes. However, changes were also made for any laptop with external monitors that aren't there when mobile so ELS is not displayed off-screen.

With basic Mac user interface changes completed next will be the combination of a native C++ Mac launcher, similar to that for Windows, and a "proper" distribution package.

It took a couple of days to get the new Mac setup with a dock, external monitors, and the development environment.

[Corionis]

After spending time getting a MacOS environment setup and getting used to this Macbook Pro have spent a lot of time going around and around with various approaches and solutions to build both an ELS ".app" and a distribution DMG file. Lots to learn.

Have settled on a combination of:

• appbundler, Ant task for the MacOS .app, https://github.com/TheInfiniteKind/appbundler
  • Free Ant add-on
• DMG Canvas, for the MacOS DMG install, https://www.araelium.com/dmgcanvas
  • Low-cost commerical tool, $25, registered to this project's email account

Working on the manual + automated steps to build an ELS deployment for MacOS.

Coming up ... basic testing of the MacOS implementation and cross-platform interoperability.

[Corionis]

Along with:

• Test on macOS and create .dmg distribution file #139

this is taking a while. Apple MacOS is quite different than Linux or Windows.

But it's slowly getting there plus automation to build it.

[Corionis]

It's taking a while with the holiday and the differences of macOS to work-though getting the ELS Updater, some resemblance of desktop shortcuts, and minor bugs worked-out.

• The ELS Updater is code complete
• Working on desktop shortcuts
• Testing general functionality
• A full regression test is planned before the Beta release