====== BIG UPDATE! ======

All Installers updated. Much to say, so read on…

OK, the big one – Panther compatibility. That is, a single binary works on both Panther and Tiger, and PPC and Intel for Tiger. Though it may be easy for Mac OS X applications, it’s really kinda tricky for UNIX software – a few functions available in libSystem in Tiger are not in Panther, and a few library versions in Tiger are incompatible or missing in Panther. I had to force those cases to use Panther-compatible versions or add a couple libraries to the base libraries.

These are all built on Tiger, with GCC 4, so they will not be usable for developers stuck in – er, who choose – Panther. But Puneet Kishor will be maintaining the Panther-only packages, so Panther developers will not be left in the cold.

Well, besides Panther compatibility, there are many more changes:

A general change for all installers: C++ wrappers have been removed. For C libraries that have C++ wrapper libraries, those C++ wrappers were left out. C++ is hard on binary compatibility, so if a C interface is available, I’d rather have other software to use that. This includes ImageMagick and TIFF in Graphics Libs.

All new installers won’t work with the old packages. You must update everything.

For developers, the installers clean out old libraries (I like to keep things tidy) – you may need to rebuild software that uses libraries from these packages.

Base Libs (a part of the Graphics Libs installer):

  • Mcrypt 2.5.7 added.
  • Mhash 0.9.6 added.
  • cURL 7.15.3 added.
  • Sqlite 3.3.5 added.

Graphics Libs:

  • LCMS 1.15 added.
  • PNG updated to 1.2.10.
  • ImageMagick updated to 6.2.7-6.
  • FreeType updated to 2.2.1.
  • GD patched to fix nasty bounds check bug for anti-aliased lines.
  • A little comment on the [un]usability of ImageMagick on LARGE image files.

GIS Libs:

  • PROJ updated to 4.5.0.
  • DAP/DODS 3.6.2 added.
  • HDF5 is now universal PPC/Intel.
  • Python support updated for Python 2.4.3 Universal.
  • Oracle support as plugin. So developers won’t have linking problems if OCI not installed.
  • GDAL updated to 1.3.2.
  • ncdump and ncgen tools installed from HDF4 now, instead of NetCDF.

Postgres + PostGIS:

  • PostGIS updated to 1.1.2
  • PL/Python updated for Python 2.4.3 Universal
  • Note added for minor updates to PostGIS databases.

PHP4:

  • MySQL support updated to 5.1.
  • Mhash and Mcrypt support added.
  • Sqlite3 support added.

MapServer: Python MapScript added. For Python 2.4.3 Universal, of course.

Well, good stuff there. There’s more yet to come! PHP 5.1. For MapServer, Perl MapScript and PHP5 MapScript. Possibly a mod_python module for Apache. And, of course, a comparable update to the Panther-only packages. Also, a more detailed note for developers and others who want to use my packages for building other software. Some build instruction updates.

And an Intel MacBook is in the mail! I’ll be able to seriously test the Intel side of things. I’ve had a few positive reports for my packages on Intel Macs, but it will be good to not rely on random feedback.

Speaking of feedback. Please do. It’s encouraging. Suggestions are welcome (Python and Perl MapScript, mhash, mcrypt are a few responses to requests). An update this big is asking for trouble also, so if you find problems be sure to let me know.