macOS Porting Windows app to MacOS

[Padaung]

Hi, I've been developing an event photography application called Imaculum. We made the decision to start development for Windows, but we are having a lot of requests from Mac users for our software too. I am a Mac person myself, and I have to admit I'd love to see our software running on Macs sooner rather than later!

However, as a small company the cost and time to write the code for Mac is a major hurdle to overcome. I have just found out about a porting option called Codeweavers (which appears to use the WINE project to convert Win apps to Mac), has anyone tried it?

https://www.codeweavers.com/porting

For reference, my application is here: http://www.henwig.com

 

[keysofanxiety]

I use Crossover, which is a great application by the same company (Codeweavers). I imagine it uses a similar process, so I don't think you'd run into any issues.

However they will always offer trials and the link you've supplied offers a trial version, so it would be best to give it a whirl and see how it is!

 

[Padaung]

I use Crossover, which is a great application by the same company (Codeweavers). I imagine it uses a similar process, so I don't think you'd run into any issues.

However they will always offer trials and the link you've supplied offers a trial version, so it would be best to give it a whirl and see how it is!

Trial requested. Thanks for the feedback. I'd not heard of Codeweavers before so I thought it best to ask about it first. Good to hear Crossover is a great application, I hope it works for my Windows app

 

[okieiam]

base on Wine? not all feature is supported, have tried in Linux

 

[Nermal]

While I can't comment on Codeweavers' solution, I'd still like to point out that you should be sure to provide a Mac-like UI. I've seen ported apps that still use, for example, Ctrl-S to save instead of Cmd-S. I've also seen windows with their own menu bars instead of the global one. Make sure that you get this right because getting it wrong is one of the easiest ways to "scare off" potential customers.

 

[Pakaku]

Honestly, I'd refuse to buy a Wine-wrapped app if I didn't get the Windows version at the same time. Once you get around to a proper Mac port, sure, charging for it would feel okay to me.

 

[JoelTheSuperior]

Wine wrapping isn't really the best way to go about it.

If your application works under Wine, that's great and you can mention this to potential customers, but offering a Wine-wrapped version of your program in place of a native port is likely to put customers off your software, since it's unlikely that it's going to run without at least some issues.

With that said, no harm in trying - if you have some free time try Wineskin and see what happens when you try to run your software under it. Having looked at your YouTube videos for your software it certainly looks like something that could work.

 

[Arvin Gao]

I'm currently having a app on both Windows store and Apple App Store.
My solution is :
the main part of the app (business logic, non-UI related code) was developed using C++ . It can be compiled on both platform.
The UI part was developed separately. Using Swift on Mac, C# on Windows.
So I think that if your non-UI part code is in the majority and can be done by C++ ,you can try this solution.

 

[Madd the Sane]

If you decide to use a library like GTK or Qt, make sure that it still has a Mac-like feel, at least on the Mac versions.

While not impossible, it can be a bit more tricky to get the same feel that Mac users are used to.

 

[Padaung]

I'm currently having a app on both Windows store and Apple App Store.
My solution is :
the main part of the app (business logic, non-UI related code) was developed using C++ . It can be compiled on both platform.
The UI part was developed separately. Using Swift on Mac, C# on Windows.
So I think that if your non-UI part code is in the majority and can be done by C++ ,you can try this solution.

Nice, thanks for the idea. This seems like a good way to create as much code as possible in a format which can be compiled for either system, and the UI code to be bespoke for each system.

 

[KarmaRocket]

Not sure how far you are in development, but why not use Xamarin/Visual Studio? I assume you're using C#, so you can write your app to both Windows and Mac with a few tweaks for UI etc.

 

[960design]

Java used to work well cross platform(my go to 10 years ago)... but in my old age I truly strive for platform specific applications.

 

[Padaung]

Not sure how far you are in development, but why not use Xamarin/Visual Studio? I assume you're using C#, so you can write your app to both Windows and Mac with a few tweaks for UI etc.

Will look into, thanks.