.. _a_setup_mac:

**************
Setup on macOS
**************

.. _GitHub: https://github.com/vkbo/novelWriter/releases
.. _main website: https://novelwriter.io
.. _brew docs: https://docs.brew.sh/Homebrew-and-Python

This is a brief guide to how you can get novelWriter running on macOS. There are currently no
packaged version of novelWriter for macOS, so it is recommended that you just extract the source to a
practical location on your system and run it.


Running from Source
===================

To run novelWriter from source, download the latest source package from the release page on
GitHub_ or the `main website`_, or if you have git running on your computer, you can also clone the
repository.


Step 1: Installing Dependencies
-------------------------------

These instructions assume you're using brew, and have Python and pip set up. If not, see the
`brew docs`_ for help. Main requirements are installed via the requirements file. You also need to
install the ``pyobjc`` package, so you should run:

.. code-block:: console

   pip3 install --user -r requirements.txt
   pip3 install --user pyobjc

For spell checking you may also need to install the enchant package. It comes with a lot of default
dictionaries.

.. code-block:: console

   brew install enchant

With the dependencies in place, you can launch the ``novelWriter.py`` script directly to run
novelWriter.


Step 2: Install Package (Optional)
----------------------------------

You can install novelWriter to the correct location for Python packages with:

.. code-block:: console

   ./setup.py install

This is equivalent to what the ``pip`` installer does. It puts novelWriter in the location on your
system where Python packages are usually kept. This is not really the best suited location for a
GUI application like novelWriter, so you may instead copy the entire source to a suiteable location
yourself.

After this, you should be able to launch novelWriter by running ``novelWriter`` in a command line
window.

.. note::
   Right now there isn't a better integration with macOS available. Contributions from someone more
   familiar with macOS would be very much appreciated.
