Working on macOS

Building Library with Xcode

This guide has been written using the following software:

• OSX El Capitan (10.11.3)
• Xcode 7.2.1 (7C1002)

Homebrew build option tested on:

• macOS Big Sur (11.3.1)
• Xcode 12.5

Steps:

1. Get a Mac with OSX version 10.11.3.

2. Install Apple Developer Tools. Those tools include Xcode, in our case version 7.2.1.

3. Install raylib library

With Homebrew

• If you don't want to build it yourself, install Homebrew by executing the following command in Terminal.app:

/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

• Once Homebrew is installed, run the following command in Terminal:

brew install raylib

• The raylib package installs a pkg-config file, which describes the necessary compilation and linker flags to use it with yourgame:

eval cc yourgame.c $(pkg-config --libs --cflags raylib) -o YourGame

• If the build fails, you may need to run the following command with the required frameworks

eval cc yourgame.c -framework IOKit -framework Cocoa -framework OpenGL $(pkg-config --libs --cflags raylib) -o YourGame

You may get an error, complaining that the pkg-config command was not found. You can use brew install pkgconfig to fix that. If you install pkgconfig after you have installed raylib with homebrew, you should reinstall raylib so that pkgconfig works correctly. Use in the terminal

brew reinstall raylib

NOTE: The raylib Homebrew package tracks the latest raylib release and as such can be out of date with what's in master. For active development, we suggest building the newest development snapshot instead.

Build newest development snapshot from source

• Download or Clone raylib from GitHub (https://github.com/raysan5/raylib). raylib-master.zip contains all required files: source code, examples, templates, games...
• Decompress raylib-master.zip in some folder. In case of using Safari browser, it will be automatically decompressed.
• From Terminal.app, access raylib-master/src directory:

    cd raylib-master/src

• Compile raylib library using the following command from Terminal:

    make PLATFORM=PLATFORM_DESKTOP

• If everything worked ok, libraylib.a should be created in raylib-master/src folder.

4. Add generated libraries (raylib) to Xcode project. This step can be automated with Xcode project template. If, for some reason, you want to do it manually, continue with these steps:

• Create a new Xcode project using Command Line Tool. Make sure selected language is C.
• Once project created and open, Mouse click over the project main folder in the left project-navigation panel. It should appear Build Phases window, just enter and select Link Binary With Libraries. There you should add project libraries:
  • To add OpenGL: Click on + and add OpenGL.framework
  • You may also need to add these frameworks in the same way:
    • CoreVideo.framework
    • IOKit.framework
    • Cocoa.framework
• To add raylib: Click on + and Add Other..., look for libraylib.a file created previously, it should be in folder raylib-master/release/osx (make sure library has been created in that folder).
• Make sure Xcode finds raylib.h: Go to Build Settings > Search Paths and add raylib header folder (raylib-master/src) to Header Search Paths
• Make sure Xcode finds libraylib.a: Go to Build Settings > Search Paths and add raylib library folder (raylib-master/release/osx) to Library Search Paths.

5. raylib should work correctly. To make sure, just go to official raylib page and check the different examples available. Just copy the code into main.c file and run it with Run button or ⌘R.

NOTES:

• It seems there is a problem with HiDPI displays, in that case, app Window appears smaller. Solution is just moving a bit the Window and it should get scaled automatically.
• Examples resources should be placed in the folder where Xcode generates the product.

Tutorial written by Aleix Rafegas and translated to English by Ray

Without Xcode - Building Statically

Building statically means you can run this application on other machines with ease - users won't have to have any of the frameworks installed that are required. Also, this will work on mac's 10.9 and up.

Here's the quick instructions:

1. From the command line

export MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=10.9

2. Install XCode tools (don't forget to then update the tools in the Mac App Store after!)

xcode-select --install

3. Build raylib (Again, this is so the export line takes effect)

git clone https://github.com/raysan5/raylib.git
cd raylib/src
make

You may do the otool check with the file in raylib/src/libraylib.a here if you like. (LC_VERSION_MIN_MACOSX should be version 10.4), and we're good!

cp raylib/src/libraylib.a YOUR_PROJECTS_ROOT_FOLDER

4. Build your project!

clang -framework CoreVideo -framework IOKit -framework Cocoa -framework GLUT -framework OpenGL libraylib.a my_app.c -o my_app

Note: If you are compiling a C++ project, you will need to make sure your compiler supports C++11 standards. With clang you can enable this by passing -std=c++11, see https://clang.llvm.org/cxx_status.html for more details.

Check for warnings! This can tell you if a library you're linking to was not built for OSX 10.9, in which case you'll need to rebuild that too.

Check otool one last time for the LC_VERSION_MIN_MACOSX version:

otool -l my_app

Last thing, let me show you something cool:

otool -L my_app

This shows you everything your application links to. Basically, if anything is pointing to anything but /usr/lib/* or /System/Library/*, your application will throw an error if you run it on any other Mac. It's not portable. For example if it's linking to something in /usr/local/lib, or a relative folder, that would be bad. But after the above, you should be clear of dynamic dependencies!

Bundle your app in an Application

mkdir standard.app/Contents
mkdir standard.app/Contents/MacOS
mkdir standard.app/Contents/Resources
touch standard.app/Contents/Info.plist

The app you just created, "my_app" should go in the MacOS folder.

mv my_app standard.app/Contents/MacOS

Info.plist should read like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
    <plist version="1.0">
    <dict>
      <key>CFBundleExecutable</key>
      <string>my_app</string>
    </dict>
    </plist>

See more fields you can add here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1596945/building-osx-app-bundle

Now you can double click on standard.app and it will run your application! Note that some things will be cached by the OS. If you want to refresh your application bundle run this:

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -f standard.app

This has a whole lot of potentially useful info on all the apps on your system, you can use this to determine if the version is correct I suppose:

 /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -dump > dump.txt

Just search for your app in dump.txt.

Creating a DMG image for sharing your app

You could just as easily do a zip I suppose, but DMGs are fashionable aren't they?

Here's a 32 megabyte dmg:

1. Create the writeable dmg.

hdiutil create -size 32m -fs HFS+ -volname "My App" my_app_writeable.dmg

2. Attach my_app_writeable.dmg. This should tell you something like /dev/disk3 or something. Make a note of that, you'll need it for the next step.

hdiutil attach my_app_writeable.dmg

3. Drag your app into the dmg. Then run this, replacing disk999 with whatever /dev/disk was specified in the previous step.

hdiutil detach /dev/disk999

4. Convert to my_app.dmg.

hdiutil convert my_app_writeable.dmg -format UDZO -o my_app.dmg

5. Share it. Congratulations, my_app.dmg is ready to be sent to all your most trusted game critics.