by Dan Belcher (Last modified: 18 Feb 2019)
This guide covers all the necessary tools required to author Rhino plugins on Mac.
By the end of this guide, you should have all the tools installed necessary for authoring, building, and debugging C# .NET plugins using RhinoCommon in Rhino for Mac.
Prerequisites
- Find a consulting partner to help you take your business mobile, ramp up with Visual Studio and Xamarin, and build higher quality mobile solutions. Long-term strategic partners are mobile experts who can guide you through any stage of the app lifecycle and will help you design, develop, and test high-performing cross-platform mobile apps.
- Xamarin then went on to make Mono Develop, which was cross platform IDE for Mono. In early 2013, Xamarin announced Xamarin Studio which is based on Mono Develop, but with many advanced features. Xamarin Studio is able to read and work with Visual Studio projects and create iOS, Android, OSX and Windows applications.
- Mono Framework 5.8.1.0 MONO https://dl.xamarin.com/MonoFrameworkMDK/Macx86/MonoFramework-MDK-5.8.1.0.macos10.xamarin.universal.pkg.
- On my end, I'm not waiting that urgently for it. I already am using my version of Xamarin.Mac/Mono with this PR baked in. However, I would for sure prefer if Mono/Xamarin benefits from it as well (I would benefit as well from not having to maintain these changes every time I want to update naturally ?).
This guide presumes you have an:
- Apple Mac running macOS Sierra (10.12.5) or later.
- Rhino 5 for Mac (5.1) or later.
A chat room to discuss Xamarin.Mac exists on Discord. Obtaining Xamarin.Mac Xamarin.Mac is available as part of Xamarin Studio or Visual Studio to download your package.
Install Xcode
Xcode is Apple’s development platform and IDE. Though it is not absolutely required that you install Xcode in order to build, debug, and run C# plugins using RhinoCommon, it is recommended that you do. In short: the Visual Studio for Mac works best with Xcode installed.
Step-by-Step
- Xcode is free in the Mac App Store. Click the View in Mac App Store button.
- Click the Get > Install App button underneath the Xcode icon.
- You will be prompted for your Apple ID (required to download apps on the App Store).
- Xcode is large download - nearly 2.6 GB in size. You can monitor the progress of the download in Launchpad. When Xcode is finished downloading an installing, it will be your /Applications folder.
- Launch Xcode. On initial launch, Xcode will install some additional components.
- Quit Xcode.
Install Visual Studio for Mac
Visual Studio for Mac (formerly Xamarin Studio, formerly MonoDevelop) is required to build RhinoCommon plugins on macOS. The core components of the Mono platform that are required are the Mono Framework and Visual Studio for Mac. Please check out the What are Mono and Xamarin? guide for more information.
Step-by-Step
- Download Visual Studio for Mac.
- Visual Studio for Mac uses an Installer app, which downloads and installs the components that you select. Once you have downloaded the VisualStudioInstaller.dmg, double-click it to mount the disk image. Double-click the big Install Visual Studio.app icon to launch the installer.
- You must accept the Visual Studio Software License Agreement.
- Visual Studio for Mac can install the following items:
- Visual Studio + Profiler (required)
- Android + Xamarin.Forms1 (optional)
- iOS + Xamarin.Forms2 (optional)
- macOS - formerly Xamarin.Mac3 (optional)
- Workbooks and Inspector (optional)
- Verify that Visual Studio + Profiler is checked and click Continue.
- If you do not have Xcode installed, the installer may prompt you. See Install Xcode above.
- The installer downloads and installs: Mono Framework and Visual Studio for Mac
- When the installer is finished, click the Launch Visual Studio button.
- Visual Studio - along with the Mono Framework and Profiler are now installed.
- Visual Studio is installed in your /Applications folder. You will want to drag its icon to your Dock for future use or - if it’s running - right/option-click the icon in the Dock and select Keep in Dock.
Install the RhinoCommon Extension
The RhinoCommon AddIn/Extension is required to debug your plugin code in an active session of Rhino for Mac. Additionally, it contains project templates to get you started creating plugins quickly.
Step-by-Step
- Visit the AddIn’s GitHub releases page and find the Latest release in the list of releases.
- Download the .mpack file in the list of Downloads on that release. For example, at the time of this writing, the Latest release download is entitled RhinoXamarinStudioAddIn_7.4.3.1.mpack.
- Launch Visual Studio for Mac if it not already open.
- Navigate to Visual Studio > Extensions……
- Click the Install from file… button in the lower left-hand corner.
- Navigate to the .mpack file you downloaded in step 2 above.
- Click Install. The plugin should install.
- IMPORTANT: You must Quit and Restart Visual Studio for Mac.
- Navigate to Extensions Studio > Add-ins.. > Installed tab. Verify that RhinoCommon Plugin Support exists under the Debugging category. If it’s there, you have successfully installed the Extension and you are DONE.
Next Steps
Congratulations! You have all the tools necessary to build a RhinoCommon plugin for Rhino for Mac. Now what?
Check out the Your First Plugin (Mac) guide for instructions building - your guessed it - your first plugin.
Footnotes
- Xamarin.Android is used to build C# .NET applications for Android devices. This is useful to have installed if you wish to use the RhinoMobile toolkit, but not required for RhinoCommon in Rhino for Mac. ↩
- Xamarin.iOS is used to build C# .NET applications for Apple iOS devices. This is useful to have installed if you wish to use the RhinoMobile toolkit, but not required for RhinoCommon in Rhino for Mac. ↩
- Xamarin.Mac is Xamarin’s proprietary closed-source toolkit build on the open-source MonoMac (aka Mono for macOS). Xamarin.Mac provides a commercial license of Mono, bindings to additional frameworks, and the ability to create self-contained application bundles that do not require mono. Rhino for Mac does not currently use Xamarin.Mac. ↩
A fully-featured development platform that enables you to write applications in C# and deploy them on Android, iOS and Windows mobile devices
What's new in Xamarin Studio 5.10.1 Build 6:
- Fixed: The iOS Designer was unable to open iPad xib files. Now these files will be correctly detected as 'xib' files and will render in the surface.
- Fixed: Fixed an issue where some storyboards would not render when iOS9 or newer was selected.
- Fixed: The Z-Order for individual ViewControllers was not being set/maintained correctly. It will be now!
- Fixed: Incorrect (CloudKit) entitlement prevents distribution when using 'Archive for Publishing”
Developing applications for various kind of devices can prove to be a challenging task, especially if you have more than one platform in mind for your app.
The C++ language is not very suitable for small-scale programs, while Java, although versatile and powerful, requires its own separate environment installed on the target machine or device. That alone would not be a major disadvantage, but it is much easier to develop applications using the native mobile environment.
Use the C# language for multi-platform support
Xamarin is a development tool that enables you to write C#-based apps for every kind of mobile platform, including iOS, Android and Windows devices. Beside the fact that you can deploy applications on the said devices, you can also keep a great portion of your code from one platform to the other, meaning that you do not have to rewrite it from scratch if you decide to make it available on another platform.
The C# language can be extended with a large amount of available libraries, SDKs and components that can be easily added into your applications using Xamarin's add-in manager. This enables you to include web development tools, deployment packages and IDE extensions to further improve the quality of your software.
Native user interfaces and API access
Xamarin delivers native user interfaces for every platform, to spare you the trouble of having to redesign the look and feel of your application when switching platforms. You also get the whole functionality package and data structures used on each type of device, thanks to the native application programming interface used by Xamarin in the deployment of your software.
All of this cross-compatibility and native support means that your apps can achieve maximum performance ratings on every kind of platform-specific hardware. Thanks to the dedicated compiling process that takes the target device into account, you can obtain better performance than if the application would interpret the code at runtime.
Xamarin Mono For Mac Download
Closing arguments
Xamarin manages to make almost any mobile developer happy, thanks to its wide array of features and the complete range of platform support. It enables you to do less work by allowing you to reuse most of your code when you are developing applications for multiple devices at the same time and it also includes native user interfaces and APIs for every supported platform.
Esthetically speaking, Xamarin presents itself as a modern and completely functional application, with intuitive controls and the possibility to organize your workspace according to your personal preferences.
Filed under
Xamarin Studio was reviewed by Alexandru Dulcianu5.0/5
LIMITATIONS IN THE UNREGISTERED VERSION- Does not include Visual Studio support
Xamarin Studio 5.10.1 Build 6
add to watchlistsend us an update 25 screenshots:
Xamarin Studio Mac
- runs on:
- Windows 10
Windows 8
Windows 7 - file size:
- 2.6 MB
- filename:
- XamarinInstaller.exe
- main category:
- Programming
- developer:
- visit homepage
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