Building and running Aural Player (quick start guide)

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Description

This page will get you started developing Aural Player on your Mac.

Pre-requisites

• Xcode 12.2 or later versions - Remember that Aural Player needs to run on both Intel and Apple silicon Macs, so we need to be able to build for the arm64 architecture. Get Xcode.

• The source code - It is recommended that you obtain the source code archive from the latest release, since that code is likely more stable than the latest code currently in the master branch.

Running the project

Since the source code archive contains everything required to run Aural Player - source code, XIBs, libraries (ffmpeg), image and font assets, and there are no remote dependencies, this process should be very straightforward, barring any local issues with your development environment, such as Xcode bugs.

1. Extract the source code from the archive you obtained.
   
2. Open Aural.xcodeproj (from the root directory) in Xcode.
3. Build (⌘B) and run (⌘R) the project. It should compile successfully and launch the app without any issues.

FFmpeg

Note that you do not need to build FFmpeg to run Aural Player. You can simply use the pre-built .dylib libraries from the source code archive (present under /Frameworks).

Re-building FFmpeg is only required if you wish to add new features (such as supporting a new audio format) or if you want to upgrade FFmpeg to a newer version. If you wish to do so, read this page for detailed instructions.

Building an app bundle from within Xcode

1. Run the Product > Archive command.
2. The Xcode Organizer should pop up once the archive operation successfully completes. If it does not open automatically, open it from the menu at Window > Organizer.
3. In the Organizer window, select the latest archive (the topmost item) from the displayed list, then click the "Distribute App" button.
4. In the dialog that pops up, select the "Copy App" (bottom-most) option and click "Next".
5. In the file dialog that pops up, select a destination for the app bundle export.

Building an app bundle and/or a DMG package from the command line

If you want to build an Aural Player app bundle or a (compressed) DMG image, and prefer building from the command line, there is a Shell script that you will appreciate: /Resources/buildScripts/releaseAutomation/build-release.sh.

To build an app bundle using the script, run:

# Assuming you are currently at the project's root directory.

cd Resources/buildScripts/releaseAutomation
./build-release.sh app

This will produce a sub-directory named "Aural Player x.y.z" that contains the app bundle Aural.app inside.

... where "x.y.z" is the project version number.

To build a DMG compressed image using the script, run:

# Assuming you are currently at the project's root directory.

cd Resources/buildScripts/releaseAutomation
./build-release.sh

This will produce a compressed DMG image file named "AuralPlayer-x.y.z.dmg". The image will contain the app bundle (Aural.app), a link to the Applications folder, the latest release notes, and a copy of the MIT software license.