-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Please sign me up for the porting/testing effort for the native Aqua Scribus. I spent months last year trying to get it to build. Alas, I don't know C++ at all, and always had to stop when I ran into the screenpaint/X11 calls: just didn't know how to work around them.
I've gotten pretty knowledgable about building and deploying app bundles from Qt, however: I'm comfortable with Qt/Mac from a build standpoint, so I think I can help there. It may not be possible to have the ideal binary distribution, which is a ~ standalone, drag-and-drop app bundle. One can do that if you compile Qt to be statically linked, rather than dynamically linked. However, I know Scribus has other external dependencies as well. Still, if Scribus can be built against a static Qt, then it should be simple to isolate the other external dependencies (libtif? etc.) into a Mac pkg installer. A standard Mac user in Scribus' target market (publishing, graphics) isn't going to want to install all of Qt just to run Scribus, even if you provide a binary installer (I maintain PyQt for the Mac with a binary installer, so I have some insight here). The example of Gimp.app (a Mac app bundle of Gimp 2.2.x) is instructive here: it's become wildly popular in terms of downloads because it wraps all the Gimp binaries and GTK libraries into a single app bundle. Its only external dependency is Apple's X11 environment. One area where we'd have to tread carefully is if the Scribus build links to Fink libraries. That complicates matters, for several reasons. One, the goal should be to make Scribus as standalone/isolated as possible; I don't think that requiring a separate installation of Fink should be part of this. Also, the Fink leaders are serious about enforcing GPL on their packages: I was warned last year when I asked about making an X11 app bundle of Scribus that I'd have to carefully document all my steps, make all my source code available, etc. I decided all that was too complex for me to undertake by myself. If Fink winds up being part of this equation, then I just want to highlight the due diligence that would need to be taken. Perhaps Martin can provide advice on this front. Another question: where should this project be hosted? My little AquaScribus app launcher is available from the Scribus site, as well as from my own server, but it's a very small download. Depending on the libraries, a Mac pkg installer of Scribus could be 20-50 megabytes to download. Can the Scribus servers in the UK handle this, or should a Sourceforge project be set up for the back end? I'm incredibly excited about this: I've been wanting to ditch my Microsoft/Adobe toolchain in my publishing business (I publish about 50 poetry books per year via POD) for some time, but Scribus hasn't been quite mature enough for my needs. (I have used it successfully with cover design only, so I know that Scribus can handle commercial work, but those covers were more work than a comparable version in InDesign would be.) With 1.2.1 supporting styled text import, it looks like Scribus may have crossed that threshold. And with NeoOffice J running natively on the Mac, that and Scribus.app would allow me to ditch X11 for everything except Gimp. So, just let me know what I need to do! I can't wait! - -- Cheers, Kevin Walzer, PhD WordTech Software--Open Source Applications and Packages for OS X http://www.wordtech-software.com http://www.smallbizmac.com http://www.kevin-walzer.com mailto:sw at wordtech-software.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (Darwin) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFCKcygJmdQs+6YVcoRAjL3AJ4759jXfvf/Z5LPJIMBscy6fv93UQCeL/Oy zm9D/sUukb2389Z3wUCfyIg= =Ep5Y -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
