[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread] 

List:       kde-mac
Subject:    Re: Install presence
From:       Ian Wadham <iandw.au () gmail ! com>
Date:       2021-06-21 7:18:23
Message-ID: 0064FAE5-7072-4A74-9A5A-078F0772768A () gmail ! com
[Download RAW message or body]

Hi Jeremy,

It's nice to see you again. Welcome back.

> On 21 Jun 2021, at 12:53 pm, Jeremy Whiting <jpwhiting@kde.org> wrote:
> 
> Just to throw in my 2 cents too. I recently used KMyMoney on mac while I was \
> waiting for a new laptop to arrive in the mail. The dmg from the build factory \
> worked well during the week I was using it on macos, but it definitely didn't look \
> as native as many other Qt applications do on MacOS. Likely for the same reasons \
> listed earlier.

BTW, what is the "build factory" and how do I access it? As you infer, building KDE \
apps on Apple OSX is only part of the battle. Getting some KDE apps to run and look \
the same as on a Plasma desktop is not so easy. In their raw state on KDE 4, apps \
would not load any kind of plugin, some messages and text would appear in black on a \
black background and Dr Konqi never worked (until I fixed it), so bug reports to KDE \
from Apple Mac never came with the required backtrace, meaning that reports from Mac \
users were ignored by KDE developers. René and I fixed a lot of those things and \
René has continued that work on into KF5. 

> It's also not very dependent on other libraries/systems to work. I don't think it \
> uses kparts or kio or anything like that.

Here's the rub. Although I worked as a KDE developer for 14 years and tried many \
times to find out what "kparts" and "kio" are and what they actually do, but was \
never able to find out (i.e.no definitive documentation).

> And yes, running anything on Big Sur that isn't signed, notarized by apple, etc. is \
> non trivial for regular users. Apple is making it harder and harder to put whatever \
> you want on these machines. 
> In years past (many years past when the QSP discussions were going on, early kf5 \
> days) I used to build kde stuff myself on mac with kdesrc-build, and had tweaked \
> userbase/techbase articles with hints to get it working, but haven't tried that in \
> quite a while. I did try with craft a bit a couple years ago, but the builds on the \
> build factory are just as good, so I haven't bothered lately.

Yes, I remember (back in February 2015) you tried to help me build Qt5 and KF5. I was \
very grateful for your help, but my efforts ended in nothing after three solid weeks \
of trying. You were one of the few KDE developers who helped any of us with Apple \
Mac.

> The way I see it macos is a few things:
> 
> A) It's a platform, like linux, but like linux there are a few distribution \
> channels that can be used. Namely 1) Self contained applications
> 2) homebrew
> 3) macports
> 4) craft built (same as 1, but built locally)
> 5) Probably many others that I'm not even aware of.

Correct. Cross your fingers and pick one.

> B) Qt5 from any of the above is a mess, or at least has been in the past. I agree \
> with Rene, if we want our applications to work well on macOS (in any/all of the \
> above distributions) we need to fix that first. Maybe if the homebrew qt5 packages \
> can be fixed the macports people will see it can be done and become more \
> approachable. I haven't dealt with MacPorts devs in quite some time myself. Barring \
> that maybe the issues could be fixed upstream in Qt6 itself. I remember the efforts \
> that went in to trying in Qt5, but times change, maybe it would be more \
> approachable now. I'm not sure. 
> All of the above is based on the idea that yes, we want KDE applications to work \
> well on MacOS.

Yes, we do. But it won't happen until there is much more co-operation between KDE \
developers and Apple Mac experts. We need a small, multi-disciplinary team to hammer \
away at the problems for a few months.

Cheers,
Ian W.

> I'm not sure if that's the consensus or not. I find it awesome that I can run \
> Kanagram on windows (natively, or with wsl2) linux (in the many variants) and \
> MacOS. But I do find it overwhelming to start to figure out how each platform works \
> and what needs to be done to make things work better on each platform. I tried \
> putting the qml and sound files in resources at one point, thinking that would make \
> it work better on MacOS, Android, Flatpak, etc. But then found that the upstream \
> qml it depended on would also likely need to be embedded in the resources to ensure \
> it's available and had no idea how to go about finding and embedding those, etc. If \
> someone knows a good set of "Best practices" for making stuff work well on many \
> platforms that would be awesome. Especially if it's in a tutorial form or has \
> examples. 
> And, this went much longer than I had planned it to be. I'll stop there and start \
> another thread later as needed for these side topics. 
> BR,
> Jeremy
> 
> On Fri, Jun 18, 2021 at 7:16 AM Adam Szopa <adam.szopa@kde.org> wrote:
> Adding Aleix back to the thread.
> > Hi guys,
> > 
> > As for Homebrew-KDE (macOS), we have upstreamed some frameworks to
> > homebrew/core, you can see their names in this recent PR[1].
> > 
> > Then you can search for them in brew analytics[2]. But they were recently
> > renamed by removing `kde-` prefix and brew doesn't handle this well in
> > report.
> > 
> > For year interval, our very basic dependency for all KDE apps, ECM, has
> > 3,835 installs before rename (as kde-extra-cmake-modules) and 1,476
> > installs after rename (as extra-cmake-modules). This gives not much info
> > about other apps, but we can say that there were about 5,311 KDE users in
> > Homebre-KDE@macOS.
> > 
> > 
> > [1]https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/pull/79211
> > [2]https://formulae.brew.sh/analytics/install/365d/
> > 
> > > 16 черв. 2021 р. о 12:19 Christoph Cullmann <christoph@cullmann.io>
> > > написав(ла):> 
> > > On 2021-06-16 10:44, Ben Cooksley wrote:
> > > > On Wed, Jun 16, 2021 at 12:31 PM Aleix Pol <aleixpol@kde.org> wrote:
> > > > > Hi Mac, Windows,
> > > > 
> > > > Hi Aleix,
> > > > 
> > > > > I'm preparing the Akademy presentation for the "KDE is All About the
> > > > > Apps" goal and I'm looking to explain a bit the state of things.
> > > > > I don't have direct information about both KDE apps's Mac and
> > > > > Windows
> > > > > user base. Would you be able to give me some information or give me
> > > > > access to it? It would help me paint a picture of the state of
> > > > > things.
> > > > 
> > > > While we don't capture any analytics on this ourselves (as the KDE
> > > > Telemetry stuff is fairly limited in use at this stage) we do have
> > > > access to Telemetry information captured by Microsoft for the Windows
> > > > side.
> > > > To my knowledge, Apple don't capture much in the way of analytics (or
> > > > if they do, they don't make it available) so there won't be anything
> > > > available for macOS i'm afraid.
> > > > Please file a Sysadmin ticket to request an account on our Microsoft
> > > > Partner centre account and we can go from there.
> > > 
> > > Hi,
> > > 
> > > I think the Windows Store is a good place to take a look at.
> > > If you have no time to do so (with the account), I want to post something
> > > about the state of current install numbers in the next days anyways,
> > > Okular and Kate are now over the 100,000 installs.
> > > 
> > > For macOS I think there is not a lot of data (and users).
> > > 
> > > The UserFeedback of Kate tells there are a "handful" of users on macOS
> > > that
> > > have turned in on (at least I see some minimal macos part in the graph
> > > there).
> > > 
> > > Greetings
> > > Christoph
> 
> 
> 
> 


[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread]