2 ==============================================================================
4 These instructions are for people using Apple's Mac OS X (pronounced
7 From the developer's point of view, OS X is a sort of hybrid Mac and
8 Unix system, and you have the option of using either traditional
9 command line tools or Apple's IDE Xcode.
11 To build SDL using the command line, use the standard configure and make
18 You can also build SDL as a Universal library (a single binary for both
19 32-bit and 64-bit Intel architectures), on Mac OS X 10.7 and newer, by using
20 the gcc-fat.sh script in build-scripts:
24 CC=$PWD/../build-scripts/gcc-fat.sh CXX=$PWD/../build-scripts/g++fat.sh ../configure
28 This script builds SDL with 10.5 ABI compatibility on i386 and 10.6
29 ABI compatibility on x86_64 architectures. For best compatibility you
30 should compile your application the same way.
32 Please note that building SDL requires at least Xcode 4.6 and the 10.7 SDK
33 (even if you target back to 10.5 systems). PowerPC support for Mac OS X has
34 been officially dropped as of SDL 2.0.2.
36 To use the library once it's built, you essential have two possibilities:
37 use the traditional autoconf/automake/make method, or use Xcode.
39 ==============================================================================
40 Caveats for using SDL with Mac OS X
41 ==============================================================================
43 Some things you have to be aware of when using SDL on Mac OS X:
45 - If you register your own NSApplicationDelegate (using [NSApp setDelegate:]),
46 SDL will not register its own. This means that SDL will not terminate using
47 SDL_Quit if it receives a termination request, it will terminate like a
48 normal app, and it will not send a SDL_DROPFILE when you request to open a
49 file with the app. To solve these issues, put the following code in your
50 NSApplicationDelegate implementation:
53 - (NSApplicationTerminateReply)applicationShouldTerminate:(NSApplication *)sender
55 if (SDL_GetEventState(SDL_QUIT) == SDL_ENABLE) {
57 event.type = SDL_QUIT;
58 SDL_PushEvent(&event);
61 return NSTerminateCancel;
64 - (BOOL)application:(NSApplication *)theApplication openFile:(NSString *)filename
66 if (SDL_GetEventState(SDL_DROPFILE) == SDL_ENABLE) {
68 event.type = SDL_DROPFILE;
69 event.drop.file = SDL_strdup([filename UTF8String]);
70 return (SDL_PushEvent(&event) > 0);
76 ==============================================================================
77 Using the Simple DirectMedia Layer with a traditional Makefile
78 ==============================================================================
80 An existing autoconf/automake build system for your SDL app has good chances
81 to work almost unchanged on OS X. However, to produce a "real" Mac OS X binary
82 that you can distribute to users, you need to put the generated binary into a
83 so called "bundle", which basically is a fancy folder with a name like
86 To get this build automatically, add something like the following rule to
89 bundle_contents = APP_NAME.app/Contents
90 APP_NAME_bundle: EXE_NAME
91 mkdir -p $(bundle_contents)/MacOS
92 mkdir -p $(bundle_contents)/Resources
93 echo "APPL????" > $(bundle_contents)/PkgInfo
94 $(INSTALL_PROGRAM) $< $(bundle_contents)/MacOS/
96 You should replace EXE_NAME with the name of the executable. APP_NAME is what
97 will be visible to the user in the Finder. Usually it will be the same
98 as EXE_NAME but capitalized. E.g. if EXE_NAME is "testgame" then APP_NAME
99 usually is "TestGame". You might also want to use @PACKAGE@ to use the package
100 name as specified in your configure.in file.
102 If your project builds more than one application, you will have to do a bit
103 more. For each of your target applications, you need a separate rule.
105 If you want the created bundles to be installed, you may want to add this
106 rule to your Makefile.am:
108 install-exec-hook: APP_NAME_bundle
109 rm -rf $(DESTDIR)$(prefix)/Applications/APP_NAME.app
110 mkdir -p $(DESTDIR)$(prefix)/Applications/
111 cp -r $< /$(DESTDIR)$(prefix)Applications/
113 This rule takes the Bundle created by the rule from step 3 and installs them
114 into $(DESTDIR)$(prefix)/Applications/.
116 Again, if you want to install multiple applications, you will have to augment
117 the make rule accordingly.
120 But beware! That is only part of the story! With the above, you end up with
121 a bare bone .app bundle, which is double clickable from the Finder. But
122 there are some more things you should do before shipping your product...
124 1) The bundle right now probably is dynamically linked against SDL. That
125 means that when you copy it to another computer, *it will not run*,
126 unless you also install SDL on that other computer. A good solution
127 for this dilemma is to static link against SDL. On OS X, you can
128 achieve that by linking against the libraries listed by
129 sdl-config --static-libs
130 instead of those listed by
132 Depending on how exactly SDL is integrated into your build systems, the
133 way to achieve that varies, so I won't describe it here in detail
134 2) Add an 'Info.plist' to your application. That is a special XML file which
135 contains some meta-information about your application (like some copyright
136 information, the version of your app, the name of an optional icon file,
137 and other things). Part of that information is displayed by the Finder
138 when you click on the .app, or if you look at the "Get Info" window.
139 More information about Info.plist files can be found on Apple's homepage.
142 As a final remark, let me add that I use some of the techniques (and some
143 variations of them) in Exult and ScummVM; both are available in source on
144 the net, so feel free to take a peek at them for inspiration!
147 ==============================================================================
148 Using the Simple DirectMedia Layer with Xcode
149 ==============================================================================
151 These instructions are for using Apple's Xcode IDE to build SDL applications.
155 The first thing to do is to unpack the Xcode.tar.gz archive in the
156 top level SDL directory (where the Xcode.tar.gz archive resides).
157 Because Stuffit Expander will unpack the archive into a subdirectory,
158 you should unpack the archive manually from the command line:
159 cd [path_to_SDL_source]
161 This will create a new folder called Xcode, which you can browse
162 normally from the Finder.
164 - Building the Framework
166 The SDL Library is packaged as a framework bundle, an organized
167 relocatable folder hierarchy of executable code, interface headers,
168 and additional resources. For practical purposes, you can think of a
169 framework as a more user and system-friendly shared library, whose library
170 file behaves more or less like a standard UNIX shared library.
172 To build the framework, simply open the framework project and build it.
173 By default, the framework bundle "SDL.framework" is installed in
174 /Library/Frameworks. Therefore, the testers and project stationary expect
175 it to be located there. However, it will function the same in any of the
179 /Local/Library/Frameworks
180 /System/Library/Frameworks
183 There are two "Build Styles" (See the "Targets" tab) for SDL.
184 "Deployment" should be used if you aren't tweaking the SDL library.
185 "Development" should be used to debug SDL apps or the library itself.
187 - Building the Testers
188 Open the SDLTest project and build away!
190 - Using the Project Stationary
191 Copy the stationary to the indicated folders to access it from
192 the "New Project" and "Add target" menus. What could be easier?
194 - Setting up a new project by hand
195 Some of you won't want to use the Stationary so I'll give some tips:
196 * Create a new "Cocoa Application"
197 * Add src/main/macosx/SDLMain.m , .h and .nib to your project
198 * Remove "main.c" from your project
199 * Remove "MainMenu.nib" from your project
200 * Add "$(HOME)/Library/Frameworks/SDL.framework/Headers" to include path
201 * Add "$(HOME)/Library/Frameworks" to the frameworks search path
202 * Add "-framework SDL -framework Foundation -framework AppKit" to "OTHER_LDFLAGS"
203 * Set the "Main Nib File" under "Application Settings" to "SDLMain.nib"
207 - Building from command line
208 Use pbxbuild in the same directory as your .pbproj file
211 You can send command line args to your app by either invoking it from
212 the command line (in *.app/Contents/MacOS) or by entering them in the
213 "Executables" panel of the target settings.
215 - Implementation Notes
216 Some things that may be of interest about how it all works...
218 As defined in the SDL_main.m file, the working directory of your SDL app
219 is by default set to its parent. You may wish to change this to better
221 * You have a Cocoa App!
222 Your SDL app is essentially a Cocoa application. When your app
223 starts up and the libraries finish loading, a Cocoa procedure is called,
224 which sets up the working directory and calls your main() method.
225 You are free to modify your Cocoa app with generally no consequence
226 to SDL. You cannot, however, easily change the SDL window itself.
227 Functionality may be added in the future to help this.
230 Known bugs are listed in the file "BUGS"