[Qgis-developer] OSX packages

[William Kyngesburye]

It should be possible, there is a build option to do that, though I haven't fully tested it.  (GSL is bundled, I keep forgetting to ask someone to fix the QGIS donwload page to remove that requirement.)

You would miss out on GDAL driver plugins, especially those with non-GPL-compatible licenses.  They would still need separate installers, and I would have to figure out where to install them.  Probably a QGIS application support mirroring GDAL's, though it could share use of the normal GDAL plugins.  Not in the application, not proper.

Required python modules are another thing that would be needed to be bundled.  But users would still need to separately install other Python modules needed by any QGIS plugins they installed.

About the installer vs. drag-n-drop: the installer is needed for compiling the python scripts and creating the browser alias.  Drag-n-drop is not the only "normal" installation method on OS X.  Installers are just as "normal".

Besides sharing GDAL with other software, GDAL and the Python modules are very useful on their own, and I hear from many people who do use them separately from and alongside QGIS.

One thing I'm not sure about, if QGIS knows to specify the GDAL resource dir (datums, projections, ...) if it's not at the default location programmed into GDAL.  And that goes for not only GDAL as a library, but the GDAL tools and GDAL python.  (and other libraries that have resource dirs like PROJ and geotiff)

I have considered an alternative: putting the current GDAL and Python module installers on the QGIS installer disk image.  It's one download, but users would still have to install each of them in the right order.

The problem with this, and another problem with the bundling method, is that when any of the pieces change, I have to package the whole thing again (and with bundling that means saving the compiled source and running the make install again to do the bundling, and hope that something doesn't trigger a recompile).  And the user has to download the whole monster again and install it.

On Nov 6, 2014, at 3:20 AM, Andreas Neumann <a.neumann at carto.net> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I wonder if we could offer "all in one" OSX QGIS packages in the future?
> 
> The average OSX user is afraid of installing separate frameworks - even if its very simple. The normal install way on OSX is just drag and drop to the applications folder.
> 
> Is there a particular technical reason why we cannot include GDAL/GSL into the QGIS package? I know that it wouldn't be shared with other FOSSGIS software then - but would this matter a lot?
> 
> Andreas
> 
> 
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William Kyngesburye <kyngchaos*at*kyngchaos*dot*com>
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