freetype & Mountain Lion

[mantognini]

Currently SFML 2.0 relies on X11's freetype (i.e. one must install X11 – or XQuartz – in order to use SFML 2.0).

As with 10.8 (aka Mountain Lion) X11/XQuartz is no longer installed by default with the OS. Running a SFML app you are presented with an option to install XQuartz : basically it ask you to go to xquartz.macosforge.com/ and download the XQuartz installer. This is not so complicated but might discourage some lambda users. Moreover, it might be incompatible with Apple's rules to submit an app on the AppStore.

The solutions are :

1. do nothing about it... hum...
2. tell the developer to install XQuartz.
3. ship freetype with SFML (like we do with sndfile).

With solution 2 we let the developer get his version of freetype (e.g. from XQuartz) and put it in his application bundle. Note that the dev would have to edit the install name of sfml-graphics library with a command like this one :

$ install_name_tool -change /usr/X11/lib/libfreetype.6.dylib @executable_path/../Frameworks/libfreetype.dylib sfml-graphics

Could the Xcode templates take care of this command ?

The third solution does not require the developer to install XQuartz nor to edit sfml-graphics. This might be the best one for both the lambda user and the developer. However, this means that SFML should keep an up-to-date version of freetype somehow (like sndfile).

Some freetype frameworks are available from kyngchaos.com. This might be useful if freetype is shipped with SFML itself – no need to rebuild everything myself, however, there won't be support for 10.5 anymore.

More in this discussion on the forum.

No decision is made yet.

[vonj]

10.5 is dead from a practical point of view. IMHO the best would be to include freetype inside SFML. It's not like it HAS to be super critical up to date either. Consistency is much more important, and you don't get that with different freetypes from various OSX versions getting copied into the dylib.
(IMHO though, I am very novice when it comes to OSX development.)

[Qix-]

+1 this.

[ghost]

I suggest option 3 as well.

[mantognini]

I'll go with option 3. This is indeed the more reasonable solution for everyone.