Hello,
I’ve made a new wxPython app that is a wrapper around HamClock for Macs. HamClock is an amateur radio clock tool with all kinds of nifty things for hams. However, it normally requires XQuartz to build and can run as an X app or a web server. HamClock itself is C++ code. There is a macports version (have a PR request in with them to add in the web server variants).
My goal in this was to bundle everything in the app so no dev tools, Xcode, XQuartz, “python stuff” etc were needed to run it. The hardware requirements are not much for HamClock – many folks run it on a Raspberry Pi. However, there are folks like me that have a number of old macs around not doing anything, and a subset of hams that use macs for their amateur radio work.
I did end up compiling the hamclock binaries separately – used a 10.15 box to build the Intel versions, and built the Apple Silicon binaries on a macOS 15.7 box. I did have trouble installing a universal binary of wxPython, but ended up just using arch -x86_64 to build an Intel version on my M1 MacBook Pro - and that seems to work just fine.
Anyway, thought I would share it here
https://huberthickman.github.io/HamClockLauncher/
I used this as a test bed for Claude - had to fix some bits of Claude’s code but it did pretty well. The signing script is my own - based upon some previous work I did embedding a SML/NJ interpreter inside of a wxPython app - there were some very tricky dependency-graph type issues with the order of signing of things with the SML/NJ interpreter - so ended up just signing things in a loop three times in a gordian knot approach.
Of note note I use the Chirp software (another wxPython app) to help program radios… I feel like I among old friends, software wise…
Hubert Hickman