wxPerl on the Mac; was: [wxperl-users] Re: problems with wxPerl

[Christian J. <chr...@sl...>]

Hello,

I'm crossposting this reply to the macosx-perl mailing list because 
there is some interest, too.

At 14:02 Uhr +0200 24.9.2001, Jouke Visser wrote:
>I wondered if anyone yet tried to compile wxPerl on a Mac. If not, I'd
>like to ask around a bit at the guys doing MacPerl because this would
>*really* be the big pro for wxPerl compared to Tk. wxWindows itself is
>ported to the Mac, so I think in theory it should be possible.

I have written to this (wxperl-users ) list on 14 Sept, and Mattia 
Barbon replied to me (for some reason he didn't send a copy to the 
list) that it should not be too hard to port it to MacOSX but that it 
will take some work, and he hasn't a Mac so only can help with advice 
(he didn't say something about MacOS8/9, but I think this would be a 
bit harder because MacPerl is quite different from Unix perl, and the 
latest stable MacPerl version is also 5.004!, so maybe that could be 
a problem).

We need to write a Gui for the Macs, but haven't decided yet whether 
to use Perl+wxPerl or Perl+Carbon or C++ (maybe Metrowerks 
Powerplant). If we decide (within the next week or two) to use 
wxPerl, we'll be glad to work together in some form. I've already got 
an offer for some help from someone on the macosx-perl-list.


I think the following has to be worked out:
(at least for me, maybe others have more experience i.e. with Perl on MacOSX)

MacOSX:
- get wxWindows to install and work.
    Mattia writes:
      wxWindows on MacOS X is still not as stable as the Windows/GTK
      ports, though it is progressing steadily, and the developers are
      generally very responsive WRT bugreports; on MacOS 9 it should
      be pretty stable though
    Also quoting Mattia, we should use the the wxWindows' developement
      branch ( 2.3.1 ), or the CVS head.
    (The guys maintaining the MacOSX version of wxWindows seem to be from
     switzerland, that may be some benefit for me.)
- find out how to compile perl modules on MacOSX (GCC, Development 
tools CD?, ...)
- try to compile wxperl - find out why it doesn't - figure out how 
wxWindows works and which bindings wxPerl provides, so how to solve 
some platform specific quirks (hopefully not?). Maybe talk with the 
wxWindows-MacOSX guys if necessary.

MacOS8/9:
- get wxWindows installed
- get CodeWarrior (I have an old (~2y) version that's probably outdated)
- find out how to write interfaces for MacPerl. AFAIK, this works 
somewhat differently than the usual xs approach (Chris Nandor aka 
Pudge has written some MacPerl modules, I'm sure looking at his 
materials will help. I've also seen him in #macperl on irc.)
- do the necessary stuff to get wxPerl compiled.
- maybe find out why it doesn't - same thing as above.
(- find out how well MacPerl works as a background application.-> for 
our purpose)

(I mainly have experience with Perl on Linux, and some C and C++ 
background. I used MacPerl before I converted to linux some years 
ago. I haven't used MacOSX much yet.)
We (my project partners and I) primarily need the MacOSX version, so 
wxPerl-MacOS8/9 doesn't have a high priority for us. We would need 
the MacOSX version at the latest by the end of october (november 24th 
our app has to be ready).

Jouke, have you got any reply from the MacPerl guys? Would you be 
interested in the MacOSX version?

Christian.