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 fatbuild.sh script in build-scripts:
21 sh build-scripts/fatbuild.sh
22 sudo build-scripts/fatbuild.sh install
23 This script builds SDL with 10.5 ABI compatibility on i386 and 10.6
24 ABI compatibility on x86_64 architectures. For best compatibility you
25 should compile your application the same way. A script which wraps
26 gcc to make this easy is provided in test/gcc-fat.sh
28 Please note that building SDL requires at least Xcode 4.6 and the 10.7 SDK
29 (even if you target back to 10.5 systems). PowerPC support for Mac OS X has
30 been officially dropped as of SDL 2.0.2.
32 To use the library once it's built, you essential have two possibilities:
33 use the traditional autoconf/automake/make method, or use Xcode.
35 ==============================================================================
36 Caveats for using SDL with Mac OS X
37 ==============================================================================
39 Some things you have to be aware of when using SDL on Mac OS X:
41 - If you register your own NSApplicationDelegate (using [NSApp setDelegate:]),
42 SDL will not register its own. This means that SDL will not terminate using
43 SDL_Quit if it receives a termination request, it will terminate like a
44 normal app, and it will not send a SDL_DROPFILE when you request to open a
45 file with the app. To solve these issues, put the following code in your
46 NSApplicationDelegate implementation:
49 - (NSApplicationTerminateReply)applicationShouldTerminate:(NSApplication *)sender
51 if (SDL_GetEventState(SDL_QUIT) == SDL_ENABLE) {
53 event.type = SDL_QUIT;
54 SDL_PushEvent(&event);
57 return NSTerminateCancel;
60 - (BOOL)application:(NSApplication *)theApplication openFile:(NSString *)filename
62 if (SDL_GetEventState(SDL_DROPFILE) == SDL_ENABLE) {
64 event.type = SDL_DROPFILE;
65 event.drop.file = SDL_strdup([filename UTF8String]);
66 return (SDL_PushEvent(&event) > 0);
72 ==============================================================================
73 Using the Simple DirectMedia Layer with a traditional Makefile
74 ==============================================================================
76 An existing autoconf/automake build system for your SDL app has good chances
77 to work almost unchanged on OS X. However, to produce a "real" Mac OS X binary
78 that you can distribute to users, you need to put the generated binary into a
79 so called "bundle", which basically is a fancy folder with a name like
82 To get this build automatically, add something like the following rule to
85 bundle_contents = APP_NAME.app/Contents
86 APP_NAME_bundle: EXE_NAME
87 mkdir -p $(bundle_contents)/MacOS
88 mkdir -p $(bundle_contents)/Resources
89 echo "APPL????" > $(bundle_contents)/PkgInfo
90 $(INSTALL_PROGRAM) $< $(bundle_contents)/MacOS/
92 You should replace EXE_NAME with the name of the executable. APP_NAME is what
93 will be visible to the user in the Finder. Usually it will be the same
94 as EXE_NAME but capitalized. E.g. if EXE_NAME is "testgame" then APP_NAME
95 usually is "TestGame". You might also want to use @PACKAGE@ to use the package
96 name as specified in your configure.in file.
98 If your project builds more than one application, you will have to do a bit
99 more. For each of your target applications, you need a separate rule.
101 If you want the created bundles to be installed, you may want to add this
102 rule to your Makefile.am:
104 install-exec-hook: APP_NAME_bundle
105 rm -rf $(DESTDIR)$(prefix)/Applications/APP_NAME.app
106 mkdir -p $(DESTDIR)$(prefix)/Applications/
107 cp -r $< /$(DESTDIR)$(prefix)Applications/
109 This rule takes the Bundle created by the rule from step 3 and installs them
110 into $(DESTDIR)$(prefix)/Applications/.
112 Again, if you want to install multiple applications, you will have to augment
113 the make rule accordingly.
116 But beware! That is only part of the story! With the above, you end up with
117 a bare bone .app bundle, which is double clickable from the Finder. But
118 there are some more things you should do before shipping your product...
120 1) The bundle right now probably is dynamically linked against SDL. That
121 means that when you copy it to another computer, *it will not run*,
122 unless you also install SDL on that other computer. A good solution
123 for this dilemma is to static link against SDL. On OS X, you can
124 achieve that by linking against the libraries listed by
125 sdl-config --static-libs
126 instead of those listed by
128 Depending on how exactly SDL is integrated into your build systems, the
129 way to achieve that varies, so I won't describe it here in detail
130 2) Add an 'Info.plist' to your application. That is a special XML file which
131 contains some meta-information about your application (like some copyright
132 information, the version of your app, the name of an optional icon file,
133 and other things). Part of that information is displayed by the Finder
134 when you click on the .app, or if you look at the "Get Info" window.
135 More information about Info.plist files can be found on Apple's homepage.
138 As a final remark, let me add that I use some of the techniques (and some
139 variations of them) in Exult and ScummVM; both are available in source on
140 the net, so feel free to take a peek at them for inspiration!
143 ==============================================================================
144 Using the Simple DirectMedia Layer with Xcode
145 ==============================================================================
147 These instructions are for using Apple's Xcode IDE to build SDL applications.
151 The first thing to do is to unpack the Xcode.tar.gz archive in the
152 top level SDL directory (where the Xcode.tar.gz archive resides).
153 Because Stuffit Expander will unpack the archive into a subdirectory,
154 you should unpack the archive manually from the command line:
155 cd [path_to_SDL_source]
157 This will create a new folder called Xcode, which you can browse
158 normally from the Finder.
160 - Building the Framework
162 The SDL Library is packaged as a framework bundle, an organized
163 relocatable folder hierarchy of executable code, interface headers,
164 and additional resources. For practical purposes, you can think of a
165 framework as a more user and system-friendly shared library, whose library
166 file behaves more or less like a standard UNIX shared library.
168 To build the framework, simply open the framework project and build it.
169 By default, the framework bundle "SDL.framework" is installed in
170 /Library/Frameworks. Therefore, the testers and project stationary expect
171 it to be located there. However, it will function the same in any of the
175 /Local/Library/Frameworks
176 /System/Library/Frameworks
179 There are two "Build Styles" (See the "Targets" tab) for SDL.
180 "Deployment" should be used if you aren't tweaking the SDL library.
181 "Development" should be used to debug SDL apps or the library itself.
183 - Building the Testers
184 Open the SDLTest project and build away!
186 - Using the Project Stationary
187 Copy the stationary to the indicated folders to access it from
188 the "New Project" and "Add target" menus. What could be easier?
190 - Setting up a new project by hand
191 Some of you won't want to use the Stationary so I'll give some tips:
192 * Create a new "Cocoa Application"
193 * Add src/main/macosx/SDLMain.m , .h and .nib to your project
194 * Remove "main.c" from your project
195 * Remove "MainMenu.nib" from your project
196 * Add "$(HOME)/Library/Frameworks/SDL.framework/Headers" to include path
197 * Add "$(HOME)/Library/Frameworks" to the frameworks search path
198 * Add "-framework SDL -framework Foundation -framework AppKit" to "OTHER_LDFLAGS"
199 * Set the "Main Nib File" under "Application Settings" to "SDLMain.nib"
203 - Building from command line
204 Use pbxbuild in the same directory as your .pbproj file
207 You can send command line args to your app by either invoking it from
208 the command line (in *.app/Contents/MacOS) or by entering them in the
209 "Executables" panel of the target settings.
211 - Implementation Notes
212 Some things that may be of interest about how it all works...
214 As defined in the SDL_main.m file, the working directory of your SDL app
215 is by default set to its parent. You may wish to change this to better
217 * You have a Cocoa App!
218 Your SDL app is essentially a Cocoa application. When your app
219 starts up and the libraries finish loading, a Cocoa procedure is called,
220 which sets up the working directory and calls your main() method.
221 You are free to modify your Cocoa app with generally no consequence
222 to SDL. You cannot, however, easily change the SDL window itself.
223 Functionality may be added in the future to help this.
226 Known bugs are listed in the file "BUGS"