Hello,

I'm currently using Freepascal for Windows mainly, and we even develop commercial applications with it - so in its state it is already stable enough for commercial use. Of course I'm grateful to all FP developers out there.

My business needs advice me to completely switch from Delphi 7 I own and use Freepascal only as it is a highly cross-platform compiler. This switch requires much effort as Freepascal has no UI design tools or alike, so I will have to create something like Delphi's UI designer to suit my needs (and I do not need anything advanced in this department).

The question is: will moving to Freepascal permit me to compile my programs for Macintosh platform without severe hassle? Has FP's Mac support proved to be commercially stable? I mainly need to write downloadable libraries which draw on standard canvas/surface (or how it is called on Mac).

My goal is to be able to have the same program I have for Win32 compile and run for Mac just by switching compiler's target.

Thanks!

See www.lazarus.freepascal.org for a the delphi-like RAD environment

Peter

Aleksey Vaneev wrote

The question is: will moving to Freepascal permit me to compile my programs for Macintosh platform without severe hassle?

I don't know. That depends on whether you have a lot of endian-specific code, whether you use much Windows-specific functionality, whether you rely on the 80bit precision offered by the extended type on 80x86, etc.

Has FP's Mac support proved to be commercially stable?

I know of one person who's moving to Free Pascal for his Mac shareware programs. There may be more. I don't think there are already any large scale deployments of FPC-compiled programs on the Mac.

My goal is to be able to have the same program I have for Win32 compile and run for Mac just by switching compiler's target.

Even if something like that would ever be possible, note that such a program will have little if any success in the Mac market. Windows programs use completely different interface paradigms and conventions, which means they work entirely unlike one would expect on the Mac (just one simple example: on the Mac, almost no settings dialog box has an "apply" button; settings are generally applied immediately as you change them, unless they could have disruptive effects).

Even Java programs have to be polished for each platform they are deployed on.

Jonas

Hello Jonas,

you wrote

> The question is: will moving to Freepascal permit me to compile my > programs for Macintosh platform without severe hassle?

JM> I don't know. That depends on whether you have a lot of endian-specific JM> code, whether you use much Windows-specific functionality, whether you JM> rely on the 80bit precision offered by the extended type on 80x86, etc.

I understand this point. Of course I'm going to stick to Single/Double floating point formats and I'm not relying on Windows and platform-specific things like RDTSC too much.

> My goal is to be able to have the same program I have for Win32 > compile and run for Mac just by switching compiler's target.

JM> Even if something like that would ever be possible, note that such a JM> program will have little if any success in the Mac market.

I was mainly thinking about developing 'slave' kind of modules - they have little to do with general UI. All I probably need is mouse and some key input.

Thanks to Peter Vreman for Lazarus link. It looks like a helpful thing. However I wonder about its Mac compatibility - not too much Mac-related info is there it seems.

Aleksey Vaneev wrote

Thanks to Peter Vreman for Lazarus link. It looks like a helpful thing. However I wonder about its Mac compatibility - not too much Mac-related info is there it seems.

It cannot yet generate programs which use the native Mac OS X gui (Aqua). It can generate X11 programs however, and XFree86 (and X.Org) both run under Mac OS X. However, such programs by default look and feel quite out of place (except to people who are used to X11 interfaces).

Jonas

Hello,

have a look at:
http://instantware.bei.t-online.de/Xcode-FreePascal/

You get a free IDE from apple and can create native mac applications using the
carbon interface.

It might be sufficient for your needs (but you will need more than an afternoon, to learn
how to create good little mac programs.)

Regards:

Uwe Fechner

Hello Jonas,

you wrote

> Thanks to Peter Vreman for Lazarus link. It looks like a helpful > thing. However I wonder about its Mac compatibility - not too much > Mac-related info is there it seems.

JM> It cannot yet generate programs which use the native Mac OS X gui JM> (Aqua). It can generate X11 programs however, and XFree86 (and X.Org) JM> both run under Mac OS X. However, such programs by default look and JM> feel quite out of place (except to people who are used to X11 JM> interfaces).

But will it be possible to me to draw on a standard device context returned to me by a host application? I.e. I do not need any standard controls and I would need to write my own controls for Lazarus.

Aleksey Vaneev wrote

But will it be possible to me to draw on a standard device context returned to me by a host application? I.e. I do not need any standard controls and I would need to write my own controls for Lazarus.

I have no idea, sorry.

Jonas

Hello Jonas,

Never mind, thanks!

Sunday, October 24, 2004, 11:51:02 PM, you wrote:

Aleksey Vaneev wrote

> But will it be possible to me to draw on a standard device context > returned to me by a host application? I.e. I do not need any standard > controls and I would need to write my own controls for Lazarus.

JM> I have no idea, sorry.

JM> Jonas

JM> _______________________________________________ JM> fpc-pascal maillist -
JM> http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal

04-10-23 16.22, skrev Peter Vreman följande:

In Lazarus it should in theory be possible to make an X Windows program which can be run in the X Windows enviroment in Mac OS X from at least ver 10.3 and up (but consider it beta quality). Just by changing some setting, as you ask for. Although as Jonas says it will not be in fully harmony which the mac culture, this is better than nothing.

Since X Windows is the native windowing system on unix, you will then also have a port to Linux and FreeBSD etc.

A port to native Mac OS (Carbon) has begun, but not much work has been done on it yet, so dont count on this at the moment.

Olle

Hello Olle,

Thanks for your reply, it's not bad to have a gfx-related Linux compatibility at the same time.

Monday, October 25, 2004, 11:14:53 PM, you wrote:

OR> In Lazarus it should in theory be possible to make an X Windows program OR> which can be run in the X Windows enviroment in Mac OS X from at least ver OR> 10.3 and up (but consider it beta quality). Just by changing some setting, OR> as you ask for. Although as Jonas says it will not be in fully harmony which OR> the mac culture, this is better than nothing.

OR> Since X Windows is the native windowing system on unix, you will then also OR> have a port to Linux and FreeBSD etc.

OR> A port to native Mac OS (Carbon) has begun, but not much work has been done OR> on it yet, so dont count on this at the moment.

OR> Olle

OR> _______________________________________________ OR> fpc-pascal maillist -
OR> http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal