It took me a while to find the time to put this together, as other things got in the way. However, here it is.

Please let me know if the problems reported have all been resolved.

Thanks!

Okay. I think I might have a solution to the two problems reported with the September 18th package.

To recap, if the game server is run from the Saved Games folder using the civserver alias provided therein, you get the following error when you enter the start command:

2: Loading rulesets
1: Trying alternative ruleset filename syntax.
0: Could not find a readable "techs" ruleset file.

Furthermore, even if you work around it by running civserver from the Freeciv.app/Contents/Resources/Freeciv directory, it can exit unexpectedly, and upon doing so, complains something about missing SDL_mixer support.

Basically, I think civserver needs the FREECIV_PATH and maybe the DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variables to be set properly.

When you launch the game client, these are set automatically. I will work out a solution where they will be set for the game server as well.

Stay tuned....

I've produced an updated package of the CVS version of Freeciv for Mac OS X that does not have a dependency on /opt/local/lib. Thanks to emj of the Freeciv forum for providing the tip that eventually led me to this solution (as well as the basis for my package).

This package has been tested only on Mac OS X Panther, and requires that you install X11 from the Panther installation disks.

As always, I welcome feedback.

I really like the Open Command Window Here PowerToy Microsoft released for Windows XP. However, there is no reason that it shouldn't work on Windows 2000.

Furthermore, I am using the commnad-line tools that comes w/ Visual Studio .NET 2003 such regasm, tlbexp, and xsd quite a bit. Instead of opening the Visual Studio .NET 2003 Command Prompt shortcut, change to the right directory, and then run the desired command-line program(s), I hacked the registry to give myself the Open VS.NET 2003 Command Window Here PowerToy to eliminate the need to manually change to the appropriate directory. This hack, however, assumes that Visual Studio .NET 2003 is installed in the C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 directory.

You can download both of these PowerToys here. Just double-click on the .reg files to install them. The standard "AS IS" disclaimer applies.

Well, someone on the Freeciv forum reported that my first attempt at a re-distributable package isn't working. I looked into it, and sure enough, somewhere one or more libraries is still looking for /opt/local/lib even after I've set the DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable.

I am not an expert on dynamically loaded libraries nor with DarwinPorts, at least not yet. While I don't yet have a solution, I am sure there is one out there waiting for me to find.

In the meantime, I have a workaround. Basically, when you launch the client by double-clicking on it in the Finder, a shell script runs which creates/updates a /opt/local/lib symbolic link that points back to the library files contained within the application itself. This apparently allows the client to run just fine.

The only danger, of course, is if you already have /opt/local/lib. But then, if you've got stuff in there, you probably don't need my package, and can compile the code yourself.

The updated package can be found here. Again, I appreciate any feedback.