Hi,
does anybody have Inform running on the upcoming macOS Catalina?
I tried it today and when I try to compile a story on Version 1.65 (1.65.1) (from the website, not from Apple AppStore) I simple see on the top of the windows “Compiling Inform 7 to Inform 6” with an empty progress bar and nothing else happens.
Jens
P.S. Tried the version from the AppStore as well, same result
Is Catalina a new build available for OSX, or just beta?
Heads up anyone in IFComp using Inform 7 on Mac - now is not the time to upgrade your OS!
Catalina (MacOS 10.15) is still in beta. It ships next month sometime. I have not tried the beta. (I never install OS betas, don’t recommend it.)
It looks like the I7 compiler component (ni), and some of the other components, are still 32-bit and will not run on 10.15. Hopefully Toby will release a recompiled version of the Mac package if the next I7 release is not ready in time.
Catalina (macOS 10.15) is still in public beta, but has an official release date of “October 2019”. Its main new feature is dropping support for 32-bit executables. Running the file command on /Applications/Inform.app/Contents/MacOS/ (Inform 1.65) shows that cBlorb, inform6, intest and ni are still 32-bit executables (while Inform, git and glulxe are 64-bit).
EDIT: Oops, ninjaed.
Looks like the release date is now Oct 4th. Oh boy, it would be such a shame if Inform 7 would become unusable on macOS …
It’s happened before. If you’ve got a major project in progress, you might want to hold off. In fact, it’s a good idea to hold off upgrading any new OS until you hear about people’s success and stability with it.
Is there an ETA for the new Inform 7 version compatible with Catalina? http://inform7.com/releases/2019/10/10/catalina.html
A couple of my students updated their OS and now cannot compile their projects, and their next Inform assignment is due in a couple of weeks.
Well, the blog post on the Inform Webseite said:
“… Instead, a fully 64-bit version of the current Inform will be available for download here in the next few days, and shortly after that on the Mac App Store.”
As the blog entry dated from Oct 10th I’m hoping that we will see the new version any day now …
Jens
Yes, I’ve been looking for the fully 64-bit build for Inform 7 for Catalina. I made the mistake of upgrading to Catalina and then realizing I7 won’t run. 
The new Mac build is now up: http://inform7.com/releases/2019/10/10/catalina.html
Huzzah! 
Thanks Toby!
Is it just me or is the Release for Testing menu item broken in the new release? It seems to only create standard, non-debug builds.
I’m not seeing that. When I do “Release for Testing”, I get a debug game file (with the debug verbs, etc).
Right, it works fine with a new test project, but with Counterfeit Monkey it produces nothing. Actually it won’t produce any build at all, debug or not, but it was opening the old gblorb I made with the old 32-bit app, which confused me. No errors in the console, though. Works fine when compiling and running in the IDE. I tried it with an older version of the CM code as well with the same result.
EDIT: The working version writes at the end:
! Completed: wrote blorb file of size 12412656 bytes (135 picture(s), 0 sound(s))
Compiler finished with code 0
The new one just says
Compiler finished with code 6
Other differences in console output: old, working version says
Inform 6.33N for Mac OS X (30th August 2015)
New version:
Inform 6.34 for Mac OS X (5th March 2016)
Old:
Allocated:
77785 symbols (maximum 90000) 60203917 bytes of memory
New:
Allocated:
77785 symbols (maximum 90000) 66272361 bytes of memory
It sounds like some stage of the release process is crashing, but there’s no message about which.
Can you post the entire console output?
Sure:
The console output for the working version is identical apart from the lines I mentioned above.
Okay, it looks like it successfully creates Counterfeit Monkey.inform/Build/output.gblorb but fails when copying it to the Counterfeit Monkey.materials/Release folder. This is odd. Again, it’s not happening on my laptop.
Maybe try deleting the Release folder entirely and let the app recreate it.
Worst case, you can copy out Counterfeit Monkey.inform/Build/output.gblorb and rename it manually.
Thanks! Almost got it to work now. First I cleaned out the Build folder, which made the build fail in a more interesting way: Packing up for release - Failed error (with a broken image, see below.) Then I commented out the “Release along with …” line, and the build worked! It seems to be the “and a website” part that it chokes on.
Right, there we go. The cBlorb stage fails when “along with a website” is specified. This is true for both Release and Release For Testing.
I’ll pass that along.
Thanks again! Glad we could figure it out.
