How to run/build Eclipse with Mac OS X/Motif

The current version of this page and related files are located here: http://www.pagesmiths.com/eclipse/

Here is what I use to run Eclipse 2.0 on Mac OS X with X11/Motif:

Eclipse distribution: http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/
Which one doesn't matter, but I used the 2.0 F2 AIX version (PPC/Motif being in common).
The Mac OS X/Motif additions (source & binary): macosx-motif.tar.gz or http://www.pagesmiths.com/eclipse/macosx-motif.tar.gz
XDarwin (XFree86 4.2 for Mac OS X & Darwin): http://www.xdarwin.org/
OpenMotif 2.2: http://www.openmotif.org/download/
Note that page doesn't mention the Mac OS X binary, but it is there on the download form. Also note that registration is optional.
libiconv from fink: http://fink.sourceforge.net/download/
After installing fink, do:
sudo apt-get install libiconv

The pre-built binaries all prefer the default locations for those dynamic libraries:
XFree86: /usr/X11R6/lib
OpenMotif: /usr/local/lib
libiconv (fink): /sw/lib
You can use alternative locations by setting DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH appropriately, or by rebuilding the binaries.

Having installed the shared libraries and unpacked the Eclipse binary, in the "eclipse" directory, unpack the Mac OS X/Motif additions:

cd eclipse tar zxf macosx-motif.tar.gz

That will place the eclipse and libswt-motif-2043.jnilib binaries in that directory. Also included are archives with source for the launcher and SWT native library build scripts (no other source changes are needed).

Launch XDarwin, and from one of the xterm windows (which will have the DISPLAY environment variable set for you), change to your "eclipse" directory and launch Eclipse with:

./eclipse.sh

A screen shot (using the OrobusOSX preview, a nice face for XDarwin: http://wrench.et.ic.ac.uk/adrian/software/oroborosx/) is here: http://www.pagesmiths.com/eclipse/screen.png

Known Issues:

With XFree86 4.2.0 and OpenMotif 2.2, there are repainting problems for trees and tabbed panes. There are bound to be other problems as well. If there is interest and I get time, I will try Lesstiff and possibly development tree versions of the libraries to track down the culpit.
The XFree86 4.2.0 libXt dynamic library is incorrectly linked with "two-level namespaces" enabled. That will be fixed in a subsequent release (and fink has its own version that is already patched). In the meantime, you can workaround by setting an environment variable:

setenv DYLD_FORCE_FLAT_NAMESPACE

A shell script is included for your convenience (eclipse.sh). If you do not do that, you will get nasty sounding errors whenever you try to use Motif:

Error: attempt to add non-widget child "dsm" to parent "Eclipse" which supports only widgets Error: Shell widget eclipse has zero width and/or height

Even though the Eclipse launcher could work without this environment variable workaround, it is necessary in order to use X11/Motif with Java. Also it is appropriate since it is already, or will be, unnecessary in corrected versions.

There is a malloc error message that appears on exit from Eclipse:

*** malloc[28530]: error for object 0x2529130: Object already freed being freed

I haven't found where that is coming from, but it seems benign.

Building the Binaries:

Building also requires the Darwin extras for OpenMotif. That is the "Download Open Motif 2.2 Development Packages Now" link on the download page (following the download form where you selected "Mac OSX"). You will need to edit MOTIF_HOME to match where you put those files in the SWT library makefile:

eclipse/plugins/org.eclipse.platform.aix.motif.source_2.0.0/src/org.eclipse.swt.motif_2.0.0/ws/motif/make_macosx.mak

The maclaunchersrc.tar.gz file contains the build.csh and make_macosx.mak files for the eclipse/library/motif directory for building the eclipse executable.

The macosx-motif-swtsrc.tar.gz file contains the build.csh and make_macosc.mak files that go in the eclipse/plugins/org.eclipse.platform.aix.motif.source_2.0.0/src/org.eclipse.swt.motif_2.0.0/ws/motif directory. Properly speaking there should be a plugins/org.eclipse.platform.macosx.motif.source_2.0.0 directory, but I'm leaving that until the other Mac OS X CVS work gets done.

To build the binaries, follow the directions on the Eclipse web site: http://dev.eclipse.org/viewcvs/index.cgi/%7Echeckout%7E/platform-swt-home/SWT-Howto.html

Note that in step #7, the directory will be org.eclipse.platform.aix.motif.source_2.0.0 rather than org.eclipse.swt.

And in step #9, the library will be libswt-motif-*.jnilib rather than *.so.

Please do let know what success or questions/issues you encounter.

JPW June 10, 2002 0:27 AM