App Bundle for macOS?

[fdanapfel]

Hello,

would it be possible to create an app bundle for macOS, so that the emulator can be started directly from the desktop?

Current cmake versions seem to provide built-in support for this: https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/prop_tgt/MACOSX_BUNDLE.html

[dingusdev]

I got some work started on this.

[dingusdev]

Someone else is reporting that the app icon keeps jumping in the dock forever with the Mac OS X bundle stuff. He suspects it fails to verify some certificate.

[fdanapfel]

For me the app icon just jumps once when I double click it, and then nothing else happens.

I'm able to run the binary inside the app bundle from the terminal however:

:~/Source/dingusppc]% ./build/bin/dingusppc.app/Contents/MacOS/dingusppc -h

DingusPPC - Alpha 1.04 (12/25/2025)          
Written by divingkatae, maximumspatium,      
joevt, mihaip, kkaisershot, et. al.          
(c) 2018-2026 The DingusPPC Dev Team.        
This is a build intended for testing.        
Use at your own discretion.                  

Usage: ./build/bin/dingusppc.app/Contents/MacOS/dingusppc [OPTIONS] [SUBCOMMAND]

Options:
  -h,--help                   Print this help message and exit
  -k,--keyboard TEXT          Specify keyboard ID
  -w,--workingdir TEXT:DIR    Specifies working directory
  -b,--bootrom TEXT:FILE      Specifies BootROM path
  --deterministic             Make execution deterministic
  --log-to-stderr             Send internal logging to stderr (instead of dingusppc.log)
  --log-verbosity :NUMBER [0] 
                              Adjust logging verbosity (default is 0 a.k.a. INFO)
  --log-no-uptime             Disable the uptime preamble of logged messages
  --setenv TEXT ...           Set Open Firmware variables at startup
  -m,--machine TEXT           Specify machine ID
[Option Group: execution mode]
   
  [At most 1 of the following options are allowed]
  Options:
    -r,--realtime               Run the emulator in real-time
    -d,--debugger               Enter the built-in debugger

Subcommands:
  list                        Display available machine configurations and exit

I'm guessing that the app doesn't work is because it doesn't know which configuration to use.

Is it possible to put a configuration file somewhere to specify a default configuration to use?

[joevt]

dingusppc now has a bundle but the bundle is currently not sufficient by itself. The command line is still required to pass in arguments.

Currently, with no command line arguments, dingusppc appears to do nothing. It adds the following to a dingusppc.log file in the current working directory:

arguments: /Volumes/Work/Programming/dingusppc/dingusdev-dingusppc/build-xcode/bin/Debug/dingusppc.app/Contents/MacOS/dingusppc
Current dir: /Volumes/Work/Programming/dingusppc/dingusdev-dingusppc/build-xcode/bin/Debug
File verbosity level: 0
( uptime  )                    file:line     v| 
(  70.557s)              loguru.cpp:851   INFO| Logging to 'dingusppc.log', mode: 'a', verbosity: 0
(  98.855s)      machinefactory.cpp:302    ERR| Could not open the specified ROM file.
( 139.667s)              loguru.cpp:541   INFO| atexit

A possible next step is to provide an alternative method of passing command line arguments, such as:

1. a config file stored in a default location (for when the bundle is launched with no command line arguments such as from the Finder or the Dock). There could be multiple default locations: per bundle, per user, and per system. If there are multiple configs then a menu can be presented or a scrollable list in a dialog or window.
2. a config file from a specified location (when the executable of the bundle is executed with a --config="configfilepath" command line argument).

[fdanapfel]

Seems like somebody else is working on a tool to manage presets for dingusppc: https://github.com/DINKIssTyle/DINKIssTyle-DingusPPC-Preset-Manager

Maybe this can somehow be combined with the app bundle to allow the app to be started with a predefined config.

another option would be to add a GUI that allows setting the configuration after the app has been started, similar to other emulators like Previous or Hatari

[dingusdev]

I was thinking of a GUI myself. I'll probably start on that once the SCSI refactor is finished.

[fdanapfel]

@dingusdev If the following PR to add support for configuration files is accepted, and dingusppc is updated to try to read the config file from a default location, then this would also be an option to allow the app to start with a predefined config: #167

Having a GUI to change the configuration when the app is already running (which should also allow to save the configuration) would be good as well.

[probonopd]

I am also working on a GUI. It is written in GNUstep and is intended mainly for Gershwin Desktop, but can also run on other Linux systems eventually. It is using bundles that can contain both configuration and ROM and disk image files etc. so that you can share just a bundle, double-click it, and it will run. Also, it is possible to define URLs rather than on-disk files; in this case, the corresponding files will be downloaded and extracted as needed.

https://github.com/probonopd/DingusPPC.app