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Steam News29 March 20197y ago

Mac and Linux Support

The Cat and the Box has finally passed review, but as an app that supports Windows only. This is unfortunate because it runs on Java, which means it has the potential to run on any operating system in the world.

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  • Compatibility
addedThe Cat and the Box has finally passed review, but as an app that supports Windows only. This is unfortunate because it runs on Java, which means it has the potential to run on any operating system in the world. The problem is that Steam doesn't want Java to be a prerequisite for running my game. They would rather the game runs no matter what. Their preferred solution is to install a JRE with the game and make it the system's java home. This has the potential to piss a lot of people off because this JRE will become outdated eventually and potentially break peoples' other apps. People may never know it was me who screwed everything up, but I'll still have a hard time sleeping at night. So instead I've made it install a JRE but only use it to launch this particular app instead of making it the java home. The problem with this approach is that the .jar file can't find the JRE on its own, so it needs an executable wrapper. Launch4j provides an exe wrapper, but of course, this will only work on Windows. I believe there is a way I can write a script for Mac and Linux that will launch a .jar with a provided JRE, which will allow me to add Mac and Linux support. I'll try to figure that out before release time. tl;dr: hang tight guys, I'm gonna try to bring this game to every operating system before release time.

The Cat and the Box has finally passed review, but as an app that supports Windows only. This is unfortunate because it runs on Java, which means it has the potential to run on any operating system in the world. The problem is that Steam doesn't want Java to be a prerequisite for running my game. They would rather the game runs no matter what. Their preferred solution is to install a JRE with the game and make it the system's java home. This has the potential to piss a lot of people off because this JRE will become outdated eventually and potentially break peoples' other apps. People may never know it was me who screwed everything up, but I'll still have a hard time sleeping at night. So instead I've made it install a JRE but only use it to launch this particular app instead of making it the java home. The problem with this approach is that the .jar file can't find the JRE on its own, so it needs an executable wrapper. Launch4j provides an exe wrapper, but of course, this will only work on Windows. I believe there is a way I can write a script for Mac and Linux that will launch a .jar with a provided JRE, which will allow me to add Mac and Linux support. I'll try to figure that out before release time. tl;dr: hang tight guys, I'm gonna try to bring this game to every operating system before release time.

Source

Steam News / 29 March 2019

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