Hi there, name's Joe. Call N8CN
I've got a Macbook Air running Mavericks, a Macbook Pro running Mountain Lion, and a Mac Mini running Mountain Lion.
On all three units, the last version I tried (a while ago) was v0.3.1. It was terribly slow, and I had issues with tasks like.. resizing the window.
I basically shelved it, and ended up using RT systems software inside a VirtualBox Windows 7 instance, which proved faster. By like, a lot.
I recently tried Chirp again (to read a chirp file for import to a website that lists area repeaters that I maintain) and was notified that 0.4.0 was available. I downloaded and installed it. I've tried it an all three platforms mentioned above.
1st issue: still very slow once you have a file with any data in it. 2nd issue: tasks like changing the size of the window are .. glitchy. 3rd issue: it crashes (repeatably) when I attempt to open a file. Not the opening-a-file part, the "browsing to where the file is located" part, usually before finding the file to even bother trying to open it.
I guess my query is this: If this is multi-platform software, are there test users / power-users using this under OSX with any success? If so, I'm wondering why my experiences have been so poor, as I know that with what I've already encountered, I wouldn't be able to use this software on OSX with any long-term success..
Or.. maybe I am missing a step? I've downloaded the zip, extracted the app, placed it where it needs to be, and run the application. There are no other "notes" on the site about other necessary tweaks -- but if there are other OSX users out there that did something different to achieve results that yield a workable platform -- is there something on the wiki that shows what you did and where you did it?
I've opened Chirp under my Virtualbox Windows7 instance, and it appears to be MUCH more stable and reliable. No noticeable "speed increase" over operations on the OSX version, but the glitchiness and crashiness seem to not exist.
Just offering what I've experienced in the last few months.
I'm not out to "flame" the software -- I think it's a great idea, and the effort is extremely remarkable!! -- and I'm not out to just "complain" -- and perhaps it's just lack of effort to dig deeper and/or understanding on my part -- I'm just communicating what I've run into (as an OSX user, and Windows-land escapee) in the past 4 to 6 months attempting to make use of Chirp on OSX
Windows, no problem. seems to work fine.
Honestly, out of lack of time, I haven't played with the linux versions despite having a lot of test platforms I could use. In fact, now that I've written this, I think ima go try it. :) Anyone try it on a RPi yet? (i assume yes…)
Best 73 and -- hey I really like the idea of this software :)