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2 Using the Simple DirectMedia Layer with Mac OS X
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5 These instructions are for people using Apple's Mac OS X (pronounced
8 From the developer's point of view, OS X is a sort of hybrid Mac and
9 Unix system, and you have the option of using either traditional
10 command line tools or Apple's IDE Xcode.
12 To build SDL using the command line, use the standard configure and make
19 You can also build SDL as a Universal library (a single binary for both
20 PowerPC and Intel architectures), on Mac OS X 10.4 and newer, by using
21 the fatbuild.sh script in build-scripts:
22 sh build-scripts/fatbuild.sh
23 sudo build-scripts/fatbuild.sh install
24 This script builds SDL with 10.2 ABI compatibility on PowerPC and 10.4
25 ABI compatibility on Intel architectures. For best compatibility you
26 should compile your application the same way. A script which wraps
27 gcc to make this easy is provided in test/gcc-fat.sh
29 To use the library once it's built, you essential have two possibilities:
30 use the traditional autoconf/automake/make method, or use Xcode.
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33 Using the Simple DirectMedia Layer with a traditional Makefile
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36 An existing autoconf/automake build system for your SDL app has good chances
37 to work almost unchanged on OS X. However, to produce a "real" Mac OS X binary
38 that you can distribute to users, you need to put the generated binary into a
39 so called "bundle", which basically is a fancy folder with a name like
42 To get this build automatically, add something like the following rule to
45 bundle_contents = APP_NAME.app/Contents
46 APP_NAME_bundle: EXE_NAME
47 mkdir -p $(bundle_contents)/MacOS
48 mkdir -p $(bundle_contents)/Resources
49 echo "APPL????" > $(bundle_contents)/PkgInfo
50 $(INSTALL_PROGRAM) $< $(bundle_contents)/MacOS/
52 You should replace EXE_NAME with the name of the executable. APP_NAME is what
53 will be visible to the user in the Finder. Usually it will be the same
54 as EXE_NAME but capitalized. E.g. if EXE_NAME is "testgame" then APP_NAME
55 usually is "TestGame". You might also want to use @PACKAGE@ to use the package
56 name as specified in your configure.in file.
58 If your project builds more than one application, you will have to do a bit
59 more. For each of your target applications, you need a seperate rule.
61 If you want the created bundles to be installed, you may want to add this
62 rule to your Makefile.am:
64 install-exec-hook: APP_NAME_bundle
65 rm -rf $(DESTDIR)$(prefix)/Applications/APP_NAME.app
66 mkdir -p $(DESTDIR)$(prefix)/Applications/
67 cp -r $< /$(DESTDIR)$(prefix)Applications/
69 This rule takes the Bundle created by the rule from step 3 and installs them
70 into $(DESTDIR)$(prefix)/Applications/.
72 Again, if you want to install multiple applications, you will have to augment
73 the make rule accordingly.
76 But beware! That is only part of the story! With the above, you end up with
77 a bare bone .app bundle, which is double clickable from the Finder. But
78 there are some more things you should do before shipping yor product...
80 1) The bundle right now probably is dynamically linked against SDL. That
81 means that when you copy it to another computer, *it will not run*,
82 unless you also install SDL on that other computer. A good solution
83 for this dilemma is to static link against SDL. On OS X, you can
84 achieve that by linkinag against the libraries listed by
85 sdl-config --static-libs
86 instead of those listed by
88 Depending on how exactly SDL is integrated into your build systems, the
89 way to achieve that varies, so I won't describe it here in detail
90 2) Add an 'Info.plist' to your application. That is a special XML file which
91 contains some meta-information about your application (like some copyright
92 information, the version of your app, the name of an optional icon file,
93 and other things). Part of that information is displayed by the Finder
94 when you click on the .app, or if you look at the "Get Info" window.
95 More information about Info.plist files can be found on Apple's homepage.
98 As a final remark, let me add that I use some of the techniques (and some
99 variations of them) in Exult and ScummVM; both are available in source on
100 the net, so feel free to take a peek at them for inspiration!
103 ==============================================================================
104 Using the Simple DirectMedia Layer with Xcode
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107 These instructions are for using Apple's Xcode IDE to build SDL applications.
111 The first thing to do is to unpack the Xcode.tar.gz archive in the
112 top level SDL directory (where the Xcode.tar.gz archive resides).
113 Because Stuffit Expander will unpack the archive into a subdirectory,
114 you should unpack the archive manually from the command line:
115 cd [path_to_SDL_source]
117 This will create a new folder called Xcode, which you can browse
118 normally from the Finder.
120 - Building the Framework
122 The SDL Library is packaged as a framework bundle, an organized
123 relocatable folder heirarchy of executible code, interface headers,
124 and additional resources. For practical purposes, you can think of a
125 framework as a more user and system-friendly shared library, whose library
126 file behaves more or less like a standard UNIX shared library.
128 To build the framework, simply open the framework project and build it.
129 By default, the framework bundle "SDL.framework" is installed in
130 /Library/Frameworks. Therefore, the testers and project stationary expect
131 it to be located there. However, it will function the same in any of the
135 /Local/Library/Frameworks
136 /System/Library/Frameworks
139 There are two "Build Styles" (See the "Targets" tab) for SDL.
140 "Deployment" should be used if you aren't tweaking the SDL library.
141 "Development" should be used to debug SDL apps or the library itself.
143 - Building the Testers
144 Open the SDLTest project and build away!
146 - Using the Project Stationary
147 Copy the stationary to the indicated folders to access it from
148 the "New Project" and "Add target" menus. What could be easier?
150 - Setting up a new project by hand
151 Some of you won't want to use the Stationary so I'll give some tips:
152 * Create a new "Cocoa Application"
153 * Add src/main/macosx/SDLMain.m , .h and .nib to your project
154 * Remove "main.c" from your project
155 * Remove "MainMenu.nib" from your project
156 * Add "$(HOME)/Library/Frameworks/SDL.framework/Headers" to include path
157 * Add "$(HOME)/Library/Frameworks" to the frameworks search path
158 * Add "-framework SDL -framework Foundation -framework AppKit" to "OTHER_LDFLAGS"
159 * Set the "Main Nib File" under "Application Settings" to "SDLMain.nib"
163 - Building from command line
164 Use pbxbuild in the same directory as your .pbproj file
167 You can send command line args to your app by either invoking it from
168 the command line (in *.app/Contents/MacOS) or by entering them in the
169 "Executibles" panel of the target settings.
171 - Implementation Notes
172 Some things that may be of interest about how it all works...
174 As defined in the SDL_main.m file, the working directory of your SDL app
175 is by default set to its parent. You may wish to change this to better
177 * You have a Cocoa App!
178 Your SDL app is essentially a Cocoa application. When your app
179 starts up and the libraries finish loading, a Cocoa procedure is called,
180 which sets up the working directory and calls your main() method.
181 You are free to modify your Cocoa app with generally no consequence
182 to SDL. You cannot, however, easily change the SDL window itself.
183 Functionality may be added in the future to help this.
186 Known bugs are listed in the file "BUGS"