Hello fellow Mac users, I’ve finally written up a Mac-specific version of the User Guide for zcash, and have posted binaries, so you no longer need to build it from source!
Binaries SHOULD work on Yosemite or later, but I’ve only been able to test it on my El Capitan machine, so any testing help and feedback would be very appreciated (even if its just “works on Sierra”, etc). Source has been built on Yosemite and later.
Thanks!
-David Mercer
Tucson, AZ
radix42@gmail.com
Brew is complaining about my xcode being too old. I’m updating it right now (will take a while) and as soon as that’s done will let you know if it works on sierra.
I just edited the above to clarify that building from source has been confirmed to work on yosemite and newer, but I have only tested the binary build on El Capitan
So @zab if you could test the binary install (and Configuration) that’d be excellent, thanks!
Yes I’m trying the binary install but brew won’t even let me install wget without downloading 4GB of XCode… 
so I guess I’ll just have to wait…
ugh, it SHOULD install the binary version of wget, wtf brew?
Ok, there seems to be a problem. It prints out the welcome banner and immediately exits with error code 1. No errors are printed.
Wanna put together another build with verbose logging that I can try? Or just the zcashd binary?
did you run zcash-fetch-params and setup the zcash.conf file in ~/Library/Application\ Support/Zcash before you ran it?
yes and yes
20 characters
what’s in ~/Library/Application\ Support/Zcash/debug.log ?
oh wait I’m an idiot, zcash.conf was in the wrong place. It’s starting properly now and fetching the blockchain. Will update you once it catches up
Awesome!
Let me know how it goes, you can follow its progress with:
tail -f ~/Library/Application\ Support/Zcash/debug.log
Over the weekend I’m going to try and get the swing UI to work on OSX. Should be a matter of pointing it to the standard data directory in case that’s been hardcoded.
Then if the swing UI is java 1.6-compatible it would make it very easy to create a .dmg that works out of the box. Sadly anything newer than 1.6 requires manual installation.
Edit: s/very easy/theoretically/ very easy. That brew stuff scares me. Is it possible to avoid it?
I’ve gotten zmsg (which sends private messages via zaddr->zaddr transaction in the 512 byte memo field) to work, even though it has ~/zcash hardcoded with:
ln -s ~/zcash ~/Library/Application\ Support/Zcash
I’m working to get rid of needing Brew as a dependency for binary only installs…I need to package up wget and flock with any libraries they need, but I’ve been hesitant to do so as it might stomp on someone’s existing wget installation. I could write an installation script that checks for them and only installs them if needed, which would also make it less likely to mess up permissions on /usr/local, which may be changed when un-taring the binary.
Also, if there’s any way you could toss even a small donation in btc, zec or fiat our way, that’d be great, I’m stuck between milestones on one consulting contract waiting on UI people to do stuff, and negotiating terms on another, so until all that get’s squared away I’m dependent on donations for my porting work to survive!
Down to business - I am interested in your work but I wouldn’t be donating; I would be hiring you to produce a completely self-contained .dmg or .pkg that requires ZERO exposure to the terminal. I do Java and can help with the swing ui as already mentioned.
I’m not doing this out of the goodness of my heart but because from game theory perspective it will increase the value of my zcash. So have a think and if you’re interested let’s talk numbers and timelines. If you prefer in private, my pgp key is here zab's public key - Pastebin.com
@zab I’ll email you shortly!
fyi @zab my public key is at: radix42/dmercer public key - Pastebin.com
(its the one from my keybase profile at dmercer (Jane Mercer) | Keybase )
FWIW on Sierra for me, brew gave me some issues. I thought it was Sierra just blocking me. I’ll try it again and report if it’ sounds interesting enough to post. Running through Debian currently, so haven’t been too much in a rush. Especially without understanding how to see the wallet and all.
#NewbStats
Check out the UI wallet at GitHub - vaklinov/zcash-swing-wallet-ui: DEPRECATED: not to be used! - Desktop GUI Wallet for ZCash it works fine on OSX.
Edit: except for that fugly Nimbus look and feel. Comment out lines 322-326 in ZCashUI.java to get a pretty OSX look and feel 