Armagetron now available on MacPorts

[unique_ptr]

Greetings to the Armagetron Advanced community. I wanted to let everyone know that I have packaged AA for the MacPorts package management system, and it is now officially a publicly available package through MacPorts!

The package features full integration with the macOS environment, including an app bundle to launch the game. The AA source code has been built using a Unix-style build, because (1) this is the style of build that MacPorts prefers, and (2) the Xcode project is really, really broken (I think most people here already knew that ). By using a Unix-style build, all of the command line functionality is still available, for all of the Terminal junkies. In addition, using the capabilities that are built into the MacPorts build system, I have wrapped the armagetronad-dedicated server scripts inside a launchd LaunchDaemon, so the dedicated server is fully integrated with launchd, as well.

To install, simply install MacPorts, and execute either of the following commands:

Code: Select all

sudo port install armagetronad
sudo port install armagetronad-dedicated

For more info on the AA MacPorts package:

https://ports.macports.org/port/armagetronad/details

[delinquent]

Thanks for looking out for our Mac users, we previously had an experimental build only. I'll shout a few people who I think will benefit from this.

FYI, most of our community is now on Discord (much to my chagrin). You can also join us, if you like, using the following URL:

https://discord.gg/dcpaauj

[aP|Nelg]

we previously had an experimental build only

That's not entirely true, we have a lot of experimental builds available

Well more seriously, while a 64-bit Mac build has not been officially released yet (the official download still points to an old 32-bit (I believe) package of 0.2.8.3.3 at this point, for which support for 32-bit was dropped a few MacOS releases ago), Mac is supported by the auto build system now, so in addition to experimental builds (0.4), we also get alpha builds for 0.2.9 and even 0.2.8.3 from the usual places (Sourceforge, downloads.armagetronad.org). That buggy dlh build has not been really necessary for quite some time now.


In any case, I'm happy to see more alternatives for Mac users.

[unique_ptr]

FYI, most of our community is now on Discord (much to my chagrin). You can also join us, if you like, using the following URL:

https://discord.gg/dcpaauj

That's too bad. Even though Discord might currently be the de facto method of interacting for gamers, I've always found forums to be more useful for developers/programmers.

a 64-bit Mac build has not been officially released yet

The MacPorts builds are all fully 64-bit.

Mac is supported by the auto build system now, so in addition to experimental builds (0.4), we also get alpha builds for 0.2.9 and even 0.2.8.3 from the usual places (Sourceforge, downloads.armagetronad.org). That buggy dlh build has not been really necessary for quite some time now.

Unfortunately, like the vast majority of other package management systems, MacPorts only allows stable/frozen, tagged release versions into its public package tree, so the version of AA that I have packaged is 0.2.9.1.0. If I have some free time, I might work on creating an armagetronad-devel package for AA's development branch.

Speak of development branches, I also wanted to point out that during the course of creating the package for MacPorts, I found quite a few build-related bugs, some of which make creating distributable packages quite a hassle. Most of the bugs that I've found still seem to be present in the master branch on GitHub. Since MacPorts developers live and die through GitHub, and it seems that the AA GitHub project might only be a mirror, I'm wondering where the development of the AA source code occurs. I'm willing to submit fixes for the bugs I found, but I'm not really sure where to do that.

[Z-Man]

The main development location right now is on GitLab: https://gitlab.com/armagetronad/armagetronad
But the GitHub mirroring works both ways, so PRs there would work, too. I'm looking forward to them. Portable build systems are HARD.