Author Topic: Text borderline unreadable on Mac  (Read 5218 times)

Offline proloto

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Text borderline unreadable on Mac
« on: September 02, 2016, 09:59:57 pm »
It seems to run fine, except the text is awful.  Much of the text is readable but ugly, but some is unreadable (I'm not familiar enough with the game to just "know" what things are supposed to say).  I included an example screenshot where the text of locations on the Geoscape is readable but seem to have strange lines and shadows surrounding the letters.  The menu options on the right are unreadable.



Any ideas?
« Last Edit: September 02, 2016, 10:09:12 pm by proloto »

Offline hellrazor

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Re: Text borderline unreadable on Mac
« Reply #1 on: September 03, 2016, 11:58:36 pm »
What Version of the game are you useing?

Offline SupSuper

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Re: Text borderline unreadable on Mac
« Reply #2 on: September 04, 2016, 11:19:22 pm »
This is a known 1.0 Mac issue, you need to use the nightlies to get correct font rendering.

Offline proloto

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Re: Text borderline unreadable on Mac
« Reply #3 on: September 06, 2016, 12:10:14 am »
Thanks.  Unfortunately using the nightlies did not work as expected, failing with the reason:

Code: [Select]
dyld: Library not loaded: /usr/local/lib/libSDL_gfx.13.dylib
I see from https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,4457.0.html that others have this issue, but there has not been a resolution for some time.  Seems that the instructions for installing on a Mac on https://bitbucket.org/grrussel/openxcomosx/overview are currently broken.  Fortunately, there has only been one change to sdl_gfx's brew formula in its entire lifetime, so it was easy to revert to a previous version.  For other people who have this problem, look at

https://github.com/Homebrew/legacy-homebrew/pull/50411/commits/16f216aea4a105d1efec6f639ce4d9cec6b4caef

I then did the following:

Code: [Select]
brew uninstall sdl_gfx
brew edit sdl_gfx
(then I modified the formula to revert the changes as done in the above link)
brew install sdl_gfx

After that, i created an OpenXcom.app directory structure, copied the icon from the non-nightly installation and put in the Resources subdirectory.  Finally I was able to run it normally like any other app.  Thank you for the response SupSuper!

As an aside, it's a little bit disappointing that I needed to be a computer programmer to get this game running.  I suspect that most people who want to play this game will not be so lucky.  Maybe it's just the case that 100% of the people who play openxcom run Windows, I don't know.

Anyway, thanks again - looking forward to playing!

Offline Cascadia4812

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Re: Text borderline unreadable on Mac
« Reply #4 on: October 19, 2016, 07:07:54 am »
Thank you for your post Proloto.  I also had a lot of difficult installing openxcom on my Mac.  I was trying to run X-com Terror from the Deep using resource files from the game I bought on Steam.  I am running OS X El Capitan.

I followed the instruction posted here to install the nightly edition (I couldn't get the milestone edition to work):
https://bitbucket.org/grrussel/openxcomosx/overview

And was getting the same error you mention in relation to the sdl_gfx's brew formula having changed.  I followed the instructions you posted to uninstall it, edit the file with the new install path, and re-installed the formula.

Because I didn't know how to edit and save files in home brew this webpage gave me the instructions I needed:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13353399/how-to-save-etc-paths-file-after-editing-it

Once I did all this I entered the terminal command detailed in the openxcom instructions to run the game and it would still not work; I received another error about a missing common folder.  I repeatedly entered the terminal command in different ways, eventually one time it worked and the game would run but when I closed it and tried to replicate it the game would not run again.  So I finally gave up since I had reached the end of my technical ability.

The install instructions for the Mac edition of openxcom are unfortunately no longer up to date as you mentioned and don't work as a result.  Even when making the corrections you pointed out I could not get the software to function except that one time.  I spent about 3-4 hours working on this and consider myself as having intermediate computer skills, despite not having any job or specific education in computer science.  I mention this to affirm my opinion that this process is too difficult for normal users (including myself as one).  I would love it if someone could compile an app I could download on my Mac that would have bundled these steps similar to the windows nightly version of openxcom.

Thanks again for your posts Proloto, the steps you detailed helped me make the most progress in trying to get openxcom to work and I really appreciate you taking the time to explain your steps and what you corrected even though I was still not successful in my attempt.  I did however get much closer to success with your help.
« Last Edit: October 19, 2016, 07:13:21 am by Cascadia4812 »

Offline heavy disruptor beam

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Re: Text borderline unreadable on Mac
« Reply #5 on: March 30, 2017, 01:52:05 am »
Just attempted OSX play. Text issues. I'm not a programmer. Sad :(