Macintosh?

[Guest tlc8126]

Any one willing to help me get a Fly! Legacy port on the Macintosh? I have an iMac G5 (20") and am learning XCode. I was hoping to spurr some interest in other forum members who have programmed for Mac OS X. Tom C

[Macflyer 2]

I would love to see Fly! Legacy on OS X. But I cannot offer anything else than beta testing due to knowledge about coding.I hope Fly! and the project are not dead on Mac!!!But when I look what goodies the pc flyers have never ported to the Mac.....

[Guest Chris Wallace]

Good luck...as you know the Mac community here is quite small, and the subgroup of folks who are able to help with development is smaller still. Fly! Legacy is intended to be portable, mainly through the use of portable third-party open source libraries such as FreeGLUT, PLIB, etc. But there are definitely a small number of cases where Mac-specific code will need to be written to replace existing Windows-specific code. Somebody on the development team was looking into some porting issues, but I haven't heard from him in a while so it's probably still pretty much open for research.Chris WallaceOttawa, Canada

[Guest tlc8126]

Right now I am learning how to program in Objective-C, the Mac's 'native' coding language. I am already familiar with C++, and so porting code written in C++ will only be an issue where the code was specifically writting for Win32, etc. Since the Mac has some very well written 'Frameworks', like the AppKit, IO Kit, etc., there is much that is already done. The Mac supports OpenGL and the GLUT, at versions up to Extensions v1.4. There are also several tools that come with the Mac OS such as Shader Builder, OpenGL Profiler, and Driver Monitor, all to assist in the production of top tier OpenGL applications. And with the Quartz 2D rendering engine, panels should be rendered without too much fuss. I don't even think I'll need PLib, its all included in the XCode development suite.If any one is interested in testing an application to calculate Pressure Altitude let me know. I am trying to figure out how to get code circulated, as well as the legalities and the in's and out's of the GNU license.Aloha's,Thomas C.P.S. If the gentleman that was going to look into the 'porting issues' that Chris mentioned above wants to reply, that would be very welcome!

[Guest tlc8126]

One other note, I'm thinking of making native tools for the Mac to aid those who have the Fly! II Mac version. Things like Database Editors, a Graphics tool (like the great 'Fly! Graphics' by the talented Elrond Elvish), and possibly something like the original Fly! Scenery Editor known as 'FlyEdit'. Unfortunately my issues are time and talent, neither of which I seem to have much of at this point!But unless I go on to meet Richard in the great beyond I will be dedicating time to these and other projects as occasion permits. (I'd like to make a scenery editor/slicer/airport flatenator for the Mac (and possibly the PC) like that which was originally included in the first Fly!'s 'FlyEdit' program.)Aloha'sThomas C.

[Macflyer 2]

Hi Chris and Thomas:glad to see some people caring for the Mac :-)@Thomas: I have no clue about coding but want to be somewhat of help fot the Mac comm. Let me know what I can assist in but I fear it is not much. The last coding I did was in Basic on the Amiga.Do you see a chance to port some dll-issues to the Mac so we can use some very specific scenery and also the C4TO package for AI traffic? Would be great.

[Guest tlc8126]

If I figure out what you can do to help I will definitely post a message! As for C4TO, that is a long way off on my list of projects. I just want to be able to render the terrain without hicups on my iMac G5 using OpenGL! No panel, no external view (and no airplane if there was...), just smoothly rendered terrain using the Fly! Legacy code as a starting point (or template). That's my first big goal, but I'll take a look into the original C4TO Fly!script.I am new to Macintosh programming, and want to program small utilities like I mentioned in an earlier post, including an E-6B like utility. This will be followed by a couple of utilities to read (edit?) the Fly! databases. At that point I think I could attempt to render terrain. It will be a long process for me, and I don't anticipate much progress in the next year (or two). I am not a programmer by profession - I do it as a hobby.That being said, I am still hoping to have more people come forward to help with this project. If someone else were to write Mac code for a Fly! or Fly! II database editor, and make that code open source, I think that would help move this project forward quite a bit. As for me, I am thinking of making the Fly! code open source under the GNU license. Other tools/utilities (like my E-6B) would be closed source.One big issue is that most Mac programmers have used the 'old' Carbon framework, which Apple is going to all but abandon. The Fly! II for Mac program was done using what appears to have been MetroWorks CodeWarrior Developement suite and the Carbon framework. I plan on doing everything with Cocoa and OpenGL.Thats it for now.Aloha'sThomas C.

[Guest Pardue802]

I'm running one of the new Intel Macs, myself. I'd love to see an open source alternative to X-Plane and hopefully be able to see improvements in other areas as well. I'm familiar with web development (HTML), JavaScript with some AJAX, PHP, and from some time ago, ASP. I've never compiled anything, and am relatively unfamiliar with programming beyond web development. If there's any way any of you folks think I can help, please let me know. I don't have much spare time, but wouldn't mind devoting some of it into research and working on this project.Use my email, kenneth at pardue dot com.