wxWidgets 3.1.5 under macOS big sur

To use wxWidgets for development under macOS big sur it’s imho best to compile the library yourself.

Step 1

Download the actual source-code (3.1.5 will build fine for both architectures x86_64 and arm64 for use in universal apps)

Step 2

Unpack the source code to your desired destination – e.g. I use /cpp-libs/wxWidgets-3.1.5 in my home directory

Step 3

Change working Dir to wxWidgets root (above mentioned)

Step 4

inside create directory „build-cocoa-debug“ (in build instructions it’s recommend to create a subdirectory as used here)

Step 5

change to the new directory

$ cd build-cocoa-debug

Step 6

../configure --enable-debug --disable-shared --disable-sys-libs --enable-universal_binary=arm64,x86_64

Configure-Options:

„–enable-debug“ – build the debug libs
„– disable-shared“ – build the static libraries (will be included in your binary later)
„– disable-syslibs“ – I had some issues with using syslibs, so i took the shipped.
„– enable-universal_binary=arm64,x86_64“ – this will compile the libs for use as universal binaries later; be happy to build for both architectures later 🙂

Step 7

make -j8

Step 8

Have a short break 🙂

That’s all. Next article will summarize the configuration of an Xcode-Project to build wxWidgets apps.