Mac OS Support


The project has had a troubled past with supporting Mac OS. We have always stated Photoflare to be Cross Platform. This is still true. The code does run on all platforms. However, Mac OS doesn’t have a nice (easy to use) installer available from the download page.

Initially I purchased a cheap (2009) Macbook to build the installers. Unfortunately the performance of this machine was too poor and unusable to achieve our goal.

I decided to use my 2019 work Macbook (with permission of course) to fix compilation issues since we added openmp support in the v1.6 release. This fix worked and now Photoflare compiles on Mac again. I was making some progress on bundling the libs for the installer but then I lost my job due to Covid-19. (Macbook sent back)

I am working again in a new role and I have a new 2020 Macbook. However, unless the company I work for has a big interest in Open Source software. I wouldn’t feel so comfortable to ask permission on using the company Macbook for this project.

Where does that leave us? I’m not very sure. I think more than likely I will need my own Macbook/Mac to build the installer. Hopefully with enough donations we could make this happen, as any spec Mac/Macbook wouldn’t be very cheap.

Alternatively I can contact Mac Ports in the hope that someone will help us in this situation.