macOS How to port an Xquartz app to Mac?

[MrSLML]

There is a special free software for tournaments that we always need. The last version was available for Mac (Xquartz based), the latest version is no longer available. I have already contacted the developer. He would love to offer a Mac version, but doesn't have a Mac himself and is not familiar with macOS. He probably works mainly with Linux. He would be very happy if I could help him with the release of the Mac version. However, I only have very rudimentary knowledge of app development. I can't code at all. Would it still be possible for me to create the app? If so, how? I have an Intel MacMini and a Mac Studio M2 Max (both on Ventura) at my disposal.

Thanks for your help!

 

[Bigwaff]

There is a special free software for tournaments that we always need. The last version was available for Mac (Xquartz based), the latest version is no longer available.

Is it the latest version of the special free software that is not available or Xquartz that is not available? Xquartz available here

XQuartz - Releases

www.xquartz.org

 

[Slartibart]

which app?

 

[casperes1996]

Completely depends how it's written. It may just require setting up the build system and building, or it may require a lot of code; Impossible to know without looking into the specific project in question

 

[MrSLML]

This is the app on GitHub. And this is the official website. As I said, I'm already in contact with the developer and he says I don't need a lot of programming knowledge, I just need to know how to compile. (Which I don't really do yet).

 

[lloyddean]

Safari marks the site as insecure.

 

[chrfr]

Safari marks the site as insecure.

That’s just because it’s not an https website. It’s not malicious or anything.

 

[lauland]

I believe what you are asking is how to build apps that use X11 on Macs. The program in question comes with Makefiles, which normally would mean they could be built on the command line.

But they have a lot of very specific things hard coded to the system the developer was using:
ifeq ($(DISTRIB), osx)
PKG_CONFIG = x86_64-apple-darwin15-pkg-config
CC = o64-clang++
#CC += -arch i386
CC += -arch x86_64
endif

Changing this to:
ifeq ($(DISTRIB), osx)
PKG_CONFIG = pkg-config
#CC = o64-clang++
#CC += -arch i386
#CC += -arch x86_64
endif

And then "make DISTRIB=osx" (in bellepoule-6.0-master/build/BellePoule) shows the following:
lauland@XXXX BellePoule % make DISTRIB=osx
Package goocanvas was not found in the pkg-config search path.
Perhaps you should add the directory containing `goocanvas.pc'
to the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable
Package 'goocanvas' not found
Package 'libmicrohttpd' not found
Package 'libqrencode' not found
Package 'json-glib-1.0' not found
Package 'libzip' not found
Package 'webkit-1.0' not found
Package 'libwebsockets' not found
\e[1;31m Release/libbellepoulebeta.dylib \e[0m
ld: warning: ignoring duplicate libraries: '-lc++'
ld: library 'ssl' not found

So it requires quite a few other packages, just to start, and looks like probably more than just those. It might be possible to install these via homebrew or macports, but they may not all be available.

If the developer said you "just need to know how to compile", they probably assumed you were on Linux or Windows.