Building GnuCash 2.2.2 on Mac OS X without Fink or MacPorts

[Derek Atkins]

Alexander Sotirov <alex at sotirov.net> writes:

> On Tue, Jan 08, 2008 at 08:46:27AM -0500, Derek Atkins wrote:
>> If you're going through all this trouble, why not try to build
>> the gtk-macosx[1] project instead and get an application that runs
>> without X11?
>
> I actually tried that right after I built the X11 version. It wasn't hard,
> you just need to set come ./configure options for Cairo and GTK. The
> native GnuCash seemed to work, but it didn't look much different from
> the X11 version (it didn't use Aqua widgets) and there were a lot of GTK
> warnigns and erors on stderr. I didn't test it extensively. Since X11
> is available on the OSX installation DVD, it doesn't seem like
> it's worth switching to the experimental native port.

I guess ...  so long as you don't need to start X11 FIRST
then there's probably no reason to worry about it.

>> > The detailed instructions, build script and patches are at
>> > http://a.sotirov.net/2008/building-gnucash-on-mac-osx/
>> 
>> Cool!  How hard would it be to take this script and then build
>> an installer?
>
> I outlined the main issues in my last email, but I'll summarize
> them as TODO items:
>
> 1) Remove unneeded files from the destination directory to reduce
> the size of the package. Linking the GNOME libraries staticly
> would be cool, but that would involve a lot of work (and hacking).

Well, you could certainly remove all the header files.  Not sure
what else can be removed, tho.  I suspect it'll be some trial and
error.

> 2) Make GnuCash work from any directory. The OSX installation model
> is that there is no installer, you just drag the app directory somewhere
> and double click to launch it. Jeshua Lacock suggested the /tmp
> trick in his email, BinReloc is something else I need to investigate.

I'd look at BinReloc first.  As I suggested earlier I'd recommend
NOT using /tmp (but you could use /opt).

> 3) Build an OSX application that wraps the GnuCash directory and launches
> the main executable, so that users get the same installation and launching
> experience. This is trivial.

trivial but useful!

> 4) Build a fat binary. My current build script doesn't and I have no idea
> how hard it would be. I might need to hack the Makefiles for all sources,
> but it could be somethinkg much easier. If it's too hard we can just have
> two versions for download.

True..

> 5) Add aqbanking and the other optional packages to the build.
>
> 6) Make the build script more robust, right now it has no error handling at
> all.

How would you feel about putting this into packaging/osx in the
gnucash source tree?

> If anybody with a Mac can to help with some of these, I'd appreciate it.

I've got a PPC running 10.4 so I could help test stuff..  But I don't
have time to do any active development.

> Take care,
> Alex

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available