[Visualpython-users] VPython working on Mac OS 10.3.2

[Joe H. <hea...@ct...>]

Good evening.

Using Kevin Chu's instructions at

<http://www.uvm.edu/~kchu/?Page=VPython/ 
BuildingVPython.html&SM=miscsubmenu.html>

I too have built VPython under Mac OS 10.3.2. I first installed the  
latest Fink and FinkCommander (a graphical front end to the Fink  
system) and all went well until I tried to build gtk+. There was a  
failure somewhere near the end that prevented the built packages from  
being installed. I suspect I goofed something up because I set  
FinkCommander to use the unstable tree so I wouldn't have to copy over  
the python23 info and patch files ad Chu describes. This didn't work,  
so I wiped out Fink and FinkCommander and reinstalled Fink. This time,  
I copied over the info and patch files as directed. However, I issued  
"fink selfupdate" rather than "fink selfupdate-cvs" and all worked fine.

Apple has made bash the default shell now and this caused me to  
stumble. Environment variables must be set as

export CPPFLAGS="-I/sw/include -I/sw/include/gtkgl" (note the quotes  
needed for multiple arguments)
export BROWSER=open

I realize the reference to /gtkgl is not needed. I verified these env  
variables had been correctly set with

echo $CPPFLAGS
echo $BROWSER

I'm curious as to why the LDFLAGS env variable didn't need to be set.  
After a successful build and install using the  
visual-2.1.9-20031005.tar.gz tarball, I fired up X11 and the vpython  
script and got the new IDLE environment and was able to run VPython  
programs. The only issues I see are:

  1) Hitting F1 fails to bring up the web browser with help docs. From  
xterm, I saw that the BROWSER env variable didn't exist so I set it  
manually (X11 apparently uses bash too), and still it didn't work. I  
tried setting this variable in ~/.profile but still no luck, although  
this does set the variable in Apple's Terminal program.

2) X11 doesn't know about /sw in the PATH, so I have to type  
"/sw/bin/vpython &" to start VPython.

 From where do xterm and X11 get information about environment variables  
  under 10.3?

Otherwise, I now have VPython running under Panther.

Cheers,
Joe Heafner -- Astronomy/Physics Instructor