Please review first draft of Fossick - a MacPorts GUI

[Ian Wadham]

Hi guys,

The first draft of the MacPorts GUI app called Fossick can be downloaded from:

    http://www.filedropper.com/fossickclonetar

by clicking a Download button or two, once you can find your way past all the
ads.  Does anybody know a better file share site?  I'm a newbie at this stuff.

If you download into a working directory of your choice, you should get a file
called FossickClone.tar.gz.  Use "tar xvzf FossickClone.tar.gz" to unpack it
into a subdirectory structure called "FossickClone".

Now you will need to use Xcode to Open… the Fossick.xcodeproj directory you
will find in the FossickClone subdirectory.  Use Command-B to build the code
or use the Run arrow button at the top left of the Xcode toolbar to build and run.

Before you do, just a few checks:

   1. Fossick assumes the MacPorts prefix to be /opt/local: that is not configurable yet.

   2. I have been compiling, building and testing with Xcode 4.6.1 and OS X 10.7.5 Lion:
       Fossick might not work with an earlier Xcode, compiler set or Cocoa library.

      The problem is that Apple has made sweeping and frequent changes to such
       fundamental features as dynamic memory management in Objective-C, how
       widgets behave when a window is resized, how Interface Builder links to apps
       and how Cocoa "bindings" and Interface Builder "connections" to apps work.

   3. Please have a look at the README file first.  It covers the development status
       of Fossick and the operation of the GUI.

I would appreciate reviews of any aspect of Fossick, but in particular:

   a. The specification - in file FossickSpec.txt.

   b. The GUI - how it works, ease of use, etc.

   c. The source code.

   d. Backwards compatibilty - in theory Xcode 4.6 can build for earlier versions of
       OS X than 10.7 Lion and 10.8 Mountain Lion, but I have no idea how that works
       out in practice and documentation seems to be vague to non-existent.

Re points c. and d., I have been struggling a bit with Xcode, Cocoa and Interface
Builder and would appreciate some "mentoring" if anyone can offer it.  After 11
years of C++ and the Qt library, I am experiencing a little culture shock … :-(

I hope you will like Fossick.

All the best, Ian W.