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FTAnalyzer and Running on a MAC, Questions and Answers

Tim

Tim

Megastar and Moderator
Staff member
There have been a number of posts on whether there is a Mac version of FTAnalyzer. The short answer is no.

But there are a number of free and purchasable pieces of software that will allow you to use FTAnalyzer on a Mac.

Parallels - Software that will allow you to run windows from within a Virtual machine on your Mac. You will need a Windows product key license. Free Trial license available.

Boot Camp - Software that allows you to run your Mac as a Windows machine or a Mac. Not ideal if you want to switch between Mac and Windows programs. You will need a Windows product key license.

WineBottler - It’s a compatibility layer that allows Windows applications to run on other operating systems. Software is free (donations accepted) but some Windows programs may have bugs. Does not require a Windows product key license.

Remote Desktop - If you use a Mac but there is a Windows PC available to you, you can remotely access your Windows PC from your Mac.

Googling will come up with a number of options, forums and help pages on this topic. I found this page useful to understand the basics and then do further research.

Has anyone had experience of using these programs or has solved this issue using a different method or software?
 
The core issue is that MACs are fundamentally incompatible with Windows PCs. Software written for a PC and be run successfully on a MAC if and only if you use a PC virtual machine (parallels) or run full windows on the mac hardware (boot camp). Both of those options work properly because you aren't running the software on a MAC you are running it on Windows using MAC hardware.

Other options as Tim highlights involve using emulator or conversion software. Wine Bottler and Others attempt to understand the windows code and run it. This works fine for very basic programs but fails horribly when you try to do anything too modern. So for instance you can get FTAnalyzer to load but most functions will fail at some point. THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH BUGS IN FTAnalyzer or any other windows program you try to run under these emulators. Instead it has everything to do with trying to fit a square peg in a round hole you can bash it in to fit but there will be damaged edges and broken bits left over.

The core issue is that because MACs and windows are fundamentally different and Apple charges extortionate prices for the hardware and more importantly for the software and the subscription to their developer program. It would cost me a fortune to get the necessary tools to even begin to write a MAC version. It would then need to be written entirely from scratch as the code environment is radically different using a different language entirely. Then I'd need to support it when people found problems, which would be a massive amount of work in an alien environment that cost me a fortune.

For all those reasons I'm never going to write a MAC version, and the best that can be achieved is to run the software on Windows on a MAC.
 
Breaking News!!!

The new version of Visual Studio 2015 due for launch soon will support .Net 5.0 Core on Windows, Mac and Linux. This is early days but it looks like it might mean I could release a new version that used .Net 5.0 that would work on Windows and Macs. Note this would definitely mean the death of XP support.

However that said it was only a fortnight ago that Microsoft provided the first test code to developers. I'm not currently setup to try this test code so I'll wait until .Net 5.0 Core is released fully, probably with Windows 10 in late July. Then it will likely take a few weeks/months or learning how it all works and trying stuff out before I can release a .Net 5.0 version. Bear in mind that a .Net 5.0 version will require all users to upgrade to .Net 5.0 so I'll probably wait until Microsoft make it available as a windows update download.

After that I'd need some Mac guinea pigs to try out the Mac build and see if it worked. I've got a mate with a Mac so he will probably try it first. Maybe light at end of the tunnel. No promises just yet though.
 
I'm happy to be a Mac guinea pig if needed. I would love to be able to use FTA on my mac!
 
Good to hear just don't hold your breath. I'd not anticipate a Mac version much before Xmas, probably New Year as it relies on others converting the Microsoft code to work on a Mac.
 
I assume as FTA does not yet work on Mac it also does not work on linux, if I am wrong in this assumption and it does run on linux then it might be worth my time to look at it, providing it does not require MONO. Being .net based it probably will need MONO and as I cannot install that due to not agreeing with the license restrictions then I may not be able to use FTA at all.
 
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