Building on macOS Ventura

[jaypeeds]

Hello,
I have sorted out a few workarounds, none implying code change, to manage to get to some results.

1. Duplicated an existing icns file to provide a missing one:
   cp <git workspace>/qucs_s/qucs/bitmaps/qucsfilter.icns <git workspace>/qucs_s/qucs/bitmaps/qucspowercombining.icns
2. Defined an environment variable to locate Homebrew installation of Qt5.
   export Qt5_DIR=/usr/local/Cellar/qt@5/5.15.6/lib/cmake/Qt5
3. After the 'cmake ..' step and before the 'make' step, had to rename qucs_s/VERSION file to qucs_s/VERSION.TXT, otherwise clang would resolve a #include <version> to this text file, obviously not in C++ syntax.
   With these changes, 'make' would run with some warnings, and after a build without error, individual apps would run in their respective build directories.
   But during the 'sudo make install' step, there is an error message for 3 out of the 8 components to be installed (-) indicates an error, (+) a success:
   (+) qucs-activefilter
   (+) qucs-filter
   (+) qucs-powercombining
   (+) library
   (+) translations
   (-) qucs
   (-) qucs-attenuator
   (-) qucs-transcalc

The error message is:

  file INSTALL cannot find "//imageformats": No such file or directory.
Call Stack (most recent call first):
  cmake_install.cmake:46 (include)

It looks like the location of Qt plugins directory is not resolved, but the installation by Homebrew does have a populated imageformats/ sub-directory.
And indeed, the 3 cmake_install.cmake files in the build/qucs, build/qucs-attenuator and build/qucs-transcalc sub-directory should be edited with:
Set(Qt5_DIR /usr/local/Cellar/qt@5/5.15.6)

and the line with /imageformats edited to include the full path, for example:

if(CMAKE_INSTALL_COMPONENT STREQUAL "Runtime" OR NOT CMAKE_INSTALL_COMPONENT)
      file(INSTALL DESTINATION "${CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX}/bin/qucstrans.app/Contents/MacOS/plugins" TYPE DIRECTORY FILES "${Qt5_DIR}/plugins/imageformats")
  endif()

And those changes allow the 'sudo make install' step to complete, though with yet a last error:

CMake Error at /usr/local/Cellar/cmake/3.24.2/share/cmake/Modules/BundleUtilities.cmake:997 (message):
  error: fixup_bundle: not a valid bundle
Call Stack (most recent call first):
  qucs-transcalc/cmake_install.cmake:60 (fixup_bundle)
  cmake_install.cmake:51 (include)

Hoping this can trigger some research by other devs... Could someone help ?
JP

[jaypeeds]

Answering to myself...
Instead of changing build files, now that the issue is understood, the fix should be added to qucs_s/<failing component>/CMakeLists.txt
Qt5_DIR and QT_PLUGINS_DIR should be set before 'cmake ..' step

Now, some additional findings:
The fixup_bundle error is caused by the translation of the APPS env variable:
For some reason, the app folder name in usr/local/bin is not matching the translation of the APPS variable:
$APPS: /usr/local/bin/qucsattenuator.app and same for qucstrans.app
Actual: /usr/local/bin/qucs-sattenuator.app

However... Once the fixup_bundle is allowed to run with the proper bundle parameter value, the resulting bundle is not working, while it runs properly in its original form in the build directory. fixup_bundle is corrupting the application bundle!
To summarize:

1. Some of the automatically generated paths for the installed application location are wrong. As a result the app remains safe !
2. When they are correct, fixup_bundle can run but does a mess, the app is corrupted, and crashes at startup !

JP

[ra3xdh]

One of the previous Qucs developers had access to Apple hardware in the past and prepared a Mac package for Qucs. I have no access to MacOS and cannot debug the build issues on this platform. So, I dropped MacOS support for Qucs-S. I can only say that the reported CMake issues were never observed on LInux/WIndows(MXE,MSYS2). But I will certainly accept a patch providing a Mac compatibility if someone will submit it.

[jaypeeds]

Thank you Vadim, I can tell that it is possible to build the whole suite without any need of code change whatsoever. It builds with mild warnings like the usage of double-equal inside double-parentheses. All the tweaks are about installation, file layouts, paths and that sort of things, and it is just what it is since it was NOT part of your scope. Again, a big Thank You ! for this project !
JP

[3j14]

In the past couple of days, I tired building for macOS again. Following @jaypeeds' instructions, I managed to compile the apps with Qt5 and Qt6. However, I had to make some changes to the CMakeLists.txt files to build the applications statically (i.e. no local installation of Qt required).

I quickly want to document my steps so that other people can replicate it.

Choice of package manager

While both brew and port should work, for now I only managed to compile a static binary using port. As the paths for both installations differ greatly, I will still point out the correct paths for both package managers. Maybe someone will get brew to work.

Installing requirements

Depending on your package manager of choice, different package names are required. bison may not be required, though the version that ships with macOS (located at /usr/bin/bison) is outdated and did not work for me.

Brew

brew install cmake bison qt6

MacPorts

sudo port install cmake bison qt6-qtbase qt6-qtsvg qt6-qttools

Replace 'qt6' with 'qt5' if you prefer to use Qt 5 instead.

Fix CMakeLists.txt files: Plugins

For static linking, some Qt plugins need to be copied into the correct directory in the macOS app bundle. The current CMakeList.txt file only copies the 'imageformats' plugins into the qucs-s.app/Contents/MacOS directory. According to Qt's documentation, they should be placed in the qucs-s.app/Contents/plugins directory.

The following modifications have to be made to the CMakeList.txt files:

# ...

IF(APPLE)
  # Replace this:
  SET(plugin_dest_dir ${PROJECT_NAME}.app/Contents/MacOS)
  # with this:
  SET(plugin_dest_dir ${PROJECT_NAME}.app/Contents)
  
  # ...
ENDIF(APPLE)

# ...

IF(APPLE AND QT_PLUGINS_DIR)
  INSTALL(DIRECTORY "${QT_PLUGINS_DIR}/imageformats" DESTINATION bin/${plugin_dest_dir}/plugins COMPONENT Runtime)
  # Add these two lines, adding 'platforms' and 'styles' plugins:
  INSTALL(DIRECTORY "${QT_PLUGINS_DIR}/platforms" DESTINATION bin/${plugin_dest_dir}/plugins COMPONENT Runtime)
  INSTALL(DIRECTORY "${QT_PLUGINS_DIR}/styles" DESTINATION bin/${plugin_dest_dir}/plugins COMPONENT Runtime)
ENDIF()

Make these changes to these three files:

• qucs_s/qucs/CMakeLists.txt
• qucs_s/qucs-attenuator/CMakeLists.txt
• qucs_s/qucs-transcalc/CMakeLists.txt

Warning
For qucs-attenuator and qucs-transcalc, you need to use ${QUCS_NAME} instead of ${PROJECT_NAME} and adjust the path according to the previous value.

Building

mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -DQT_DIR=<qt_cmake_dir> -DQt6_DIR=<qt_cmake_dir> -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=../dist -DQT_PLUGINS_DIR=<plugins_dir>
mv ../VERSION ../VERSION.txt  # thanks @jaypeeds for pointing out this problem!
make  # or 'make -j9' to run with 9 jobs in parallel.
make install

Replace <qt_cmake_dir> and <plugins_dir> with the values taken from the table below:

Package manager	Qt major version	<qt_cmake_dir>	<plugins_dir>
port	5	/opt/local/lib/cmake/Qt5	/opt/local/libexec/qt5/plugins
port	6	/opt/local/libexec/qt6/lib/cmake/Qt6	/opt/local/libexec/qt6/plugins
brew	6	/opt/homebrew/lib/cmake/Qt6	/opt/homebrew/share/qt/plugins

Note
I didn't test Brew with Qt 5 because Qt 6 already caused some problems.

The binaries should finally be located in the qucs_s/dist/bin directory.

Other remarks

I only tested this on macOS Ventura on Apple M2 (ARM). I can create a pull request with the changes (and maybe a better fix for the VERSION file) if there is interest in it. We could also setup a simple GitHub Action that automatically builds a macOS app bundle for release.

[3j14]

For the sake of simplicity, here is a patch that incorporates the changes made to the CMakeLists.txt files.

[nessex]

Thanks for all this! It worked for me. I needed to change one small thing though, the cmake command also required -DWITH_QT6=ON.

I also got a CMake error at the end of cmake install, but despite this the binary works 🤷‍♀️ , so I'm ignoring it until I find something broken. For now, circuits, simulations etc. seem fine!

Error

CMake Error at /opt/homebrew/Cellar/cmake/3.29.2/share/cmake/Modules/BundleUtilities.cmake:458 (message):
  otool -l failed: 1

  error:
  /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/otool-classic:
  can't open file: @rpath/QtCore.framework/Versions/A/QtCore (No such file or
  directory)

Call Stack (most recent call first):
  /opt/homebrew/Cellar/cmake/3.29.2/share/cmake/Modules/BundleUtilities.cmake:527 (get_item_rpaths)
  /opt/homebrew/Cellar/cmake/3.29.2/share/cmake/Modules/BundleUtilities.cmake:614 (set_bundle_key_values)
  /opt/homebrew/Cellar/cmake/3.29.2/share/cmake/Modules/BundleUtilities.cmake:933 (get_bundle_keys)
  qucs/cmake_install.cmake:73 (fixup_bundle)
  cmake_install.cmake:46 (include)

Here's the full set of commands I used to get set up with qucs-s + ngspice on an M1 mac (with brew installed for ARM in /opt/homebrew, and using a terminal under arm not x86/rosetta):

# Install ngspice
brew install ngspice

# Install qucs-s
git clone https://github.com/ra3xdh/qucs_s.git
cd qucs_s
curl -fsSL -O https://github.com/ra3xdh/qucs_s/files/12327360/macos-static-build.patch
git apply ./macos-static-build.patch
mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -DQT_DIR=/opt/homebrew/lib/cmake/Qt6 -DQt6_DIR=/opt/homebrew/lib/cmake/Qt6 -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=../dist -DQT_PLUGINS_DIR=/opt/homebrew/share/qt/plugins -DWITH_QT6=ON
mv ../VERSION ../VERSION.txt
make -j9
make install

# Run qucs-s
../dist/bin/qucs-s.app/Contents/MacOS/qucs-s

# Initial configuration
ngspice location: /opt/homebrew/bin/ngspice

Naturally, ../dist/bin/qucs-s.app could be moved to Applications or wherever to "install" it in a more typical fashion for MacOS as well.