Re: Octave-maintainers Digest, Vol 75, Issue 39

[Ben Abbott]

On Jun 24, 2012, at 6:53 PM, Thomas Yengst wrote:

>> 
>> On Jun 24, 2012, at 5:29 PM, Thomas Yengst wrote:
>> 
>>> 
>>> On Jun 24, 2012, at 10:00 AM, address@hidden wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Date: Sat, 23 Jun 2012 16:51:27 -0400
>>>> From: Ben Abbott <address@hidden>
>>>> To: "address@hidden mailing list" <address@hidden>
>>>> Subject: MacOS X App Bundle
>>>> Message-ID: <address@hidden>
>>>> Content-Type: text/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII
>>>> 
>>>> I've added a page to the wiki describing my approach to using MacPorts to 
>>>> produce a bundle for MacOS X.
>>>> 
>>>>    
>>>> http://www.octave.org/wiki/index.php?title=Create_a_MacOS_X_App_Bundle_Using_MacPorts
>>>> 
>>>> I've also placed a copy of my latest attempt in my DropBox.  The link is 
>>>> below for anyone who would like to try it out (pls report back).  This 
>>>> version is build from the developers sources (not from released sources).
>>>> 
>>>>    https://dl.dropbox.com/u/14845154/Octave-X86_64-3.7.0%2B.dmg
>>>> 
>>>> Ben
>>> 
>>> Ben - nice set of instructions. I didn't try them all, but the process was 
>>> easy to follow and seems to navigate the subtleties of OS-X.
>>> 
>>> Macbook Pro 10.6.8 Core-2 Duo 2.5 GHz
>>> 64-bit enabled
>>> 4 GB RAM
>>> MacPorts base version 2.1.1 downloaded and upgraded before trying Octave 
>>> 3.7.0
>>> No Fink
>>> No Homebrew
>>> Xcode 4.2
>>> 
>>> ran Octave 3.7.0 from within the DMG file (i.e., didn't copy to the hard 
>>> drive) - no luck; all menus were grayed out. Hard to say what it was 
>>> waiting for; as the Activity Monitor showed only 7 MB of RAM (5 threads) 
>>> being used and 0.1% CPU.
>>> 
>>> Copied to a folder (2 GB worth) - same response. No octave shell opens.
>>> I clobbered my .octaverc, but not change in behaviour
>>> 
>>> let me know what I can do help diagnose the problem.
>>> 
>>> Tom
>> 
>> Tom,
>> 
>> Thanks for the quick look. The size is a bit weird. When I download the DMG, 
>> the Finder tells me it is almost 2GB, but when it is finished downloading 
>> and I've placed the app in /Applications it is only 632MB.
>> 
>> In any event, I've placed a 2nd one on DropBox that fixes some problems with 
>> setting up the environment for AquaTerm, Gnuplot and Ghostscript.
>> 
>> Regarding the grayed out menus, what do you refer to ?
>> 
>> When I run Octave-3.7.0+.app from the DMG, I encounter three warnings about 
>> applications (the app, the app's Octave shell script, and AquaTerm) having 
>> been downloaded and am asked if it is ok to open them. That slows down the 
>> startup time (takes a couple of minutes), but eventually it does run for me.
>> 
>> When it is run, the Octave icon should show up, then the Terminal.app, next 
>> AquaTerm.app, and finally Octave runs.
>> 
>> Ben
> 
> When I started Octave, I didn't have anything else open up, meaning it was 
> just the App. After opening Octave, no terminal, no aquaterm... just grayed 
> out menu items under File, Edit, and Window. The only thing that wasn't 
> grayed out was File-Print, which brought up a print dialog box. Given that 
> there was 2 GB worth of stuff in the bundle, this must be a missing 
> connection kind of thing. I can see that all the dependencies are there.
> 
> I do have AquaTerm and Gnuplot installed in the /Applications folder, but I 
> thought the whole idea of a Mac bundle is to have all the dependencies in one 
> place under a root tree.
> 
> Is the second version of your Octave-3.7.0 at a different Dropbox location or 
> the same link as originally posted (i.e., 
> https://dl.dropbox.com/u/14845154/Octave-X86_64-3.7.0%2B.dmg)?
> 
> cheers
> Tom

The newer version is at the same location.

The bundle uses a shell script that launches Octave and should isolate it from 
everything on your system.

The script is at the link below.

        
http://www.octave.org/wiki/index.php?title=MacOS_X_App_Octave_Shell_Script

I also have AquaTerm and Gnuplot in my Applications folder, but the bundle does 
not use them.

I don't know what to think about your experience.  I'll be able to do more 
testing on other Macs this week. Maybe I'll encounter something similar?

Ben