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Richard Rosenman
Richard Rosenman
Inspiring
April 16, 2019
Question

Cross-Platform Compiling (Windows -> Mac)

  • April 16, 2019
  • 3 replies
  • 1255 views

Hi gang;

I use Visual Studio 2012 Express on Windows 7. I have a couple plugins I have developed & compiled and would like to get them ported to Mac as well.

I would have thought to do so, I just download Visual Studio on the Mac, copy the project over, and hit compile.

However, after reading this thread: What do I need to do to convert a plugin developed in Windows to be Mac-compatible?

It appears that's not the case. It seems I need to install XCode (which I know nothing about).

So is the procedure the following:

1 - download and install Xcode 10

2 - copy over my Windows VS 2012 project

3 - open it on Xcode

4 - set proper environment flags (ie. NDEBUG, MT/d, etc - although I have no idea where I'll find these in Xcode)

5 - compile

Is this along the right lines? Why can't I use Visual Studio for Mac?

Any suggestions / tips from those that have gone through this?

Thanks,

-Richard

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    3 replies

    B
    Beach38902177do19
    Participant
    July 30, 2024

    .

    A
    Anonymous
    April 16, 2019

    Simply because there is no Visual Studio for Mac

    Well, there is one, but it is not usable for C++ development.

    In any case, you will need Xcode, the standard development suite (i.e. IDE and compiler frontend) for MacOS.

    You also can't just load your Visual Studio project there, this is not compatible. As it is a completely different infrastructure, you have to set up a new project there, add your sources, add lots of different settings and libraries and basically build your own Mac version of the project. If you don't have any experiences in Mac development, this can be quite a daunting task, I admit.

    As a good starting point, take a look at the example projects that come with the AE SDK. There are project files for Windows (Visual Studio) and MacOS (Xcode) included, so use these as a base.

    This approach is nothing Adobe-specific though, if you want to do cross-platform development, you need to have the projects fitting your compiler environment.

    S
    Community Expert
    shachar carmiCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    April 16, 2019

    as far as i know you can't open a VS project in XCODE. i know MS has a tool

    for creating xcode projects from vs projects, but i'm not sure what it's

    name is.

    the basic way of porting from windows to mac, is duplicating a mca skeleton

    project, changing it's name (as you would when creating a new plug-in on

    either platform), copy over you windows code files (not the project files),

    and manually add them to your mac project in xcode.

    On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 11:10 PM richardr69178942 <forums_noreply@adobe.com>

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