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Mac

How to download and run the packaged version of Ground Control

Step 1: Download Ground Control

Download the latest version of Ground Control for Mac from the releases page. Use the .dmg file.

Step 2: Install Ground Control

Install Ground Control by moving it into your applications folder.

Step 3: Launch Ground Control

Launch Ground Control by right clicking the icon in your applications folder and selecting "Open". You can also launch Ground Control by double clicking the icon, but you may see a security warning which won't let you run the program.

Step 4: Connect to Maslow

The first time you open Ground Control you will need to tell it how to connect to your machine. Click Actions in the top left corner of the screen, click the Ports drop down to select the same port you chose when uploading the firmware, then press Connect. Your choice will be remembered so you do not need to do this step again.

You do not need to do any more steps to use Ground Control to control your machine. If you want to work on actively developing and improving Ground Control you can follow the steps below to run it from the source code.

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Install and run Ground Control from the source (for Development)

Step 1: Install Homebrew

Install Homebrew by the command /usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)" in the command prompt.

Step 2: Install Kivy Dependancies

Install Kivy dependencies by running the command brew install sdl2 sdl2_image sdl2_ttf sdl2_mixer gstreamer from the command prompt

Step 3: Install Cython

Install Cython with the command pip install -I Cython==0.23

Step 4: Install Kivy

Install Kivy with the command USE_OSX_FRAMEWORKS=0 pip install kivy

Step 5: Install PySerial

Install PySerial with the command pip install pyserial

Step 6: Download Ground Control

Download the latest version of the Ground Control source code from https://github.com/MaslowCNC/GroundControl using the "Clone or download" button on in the upper right of the screen.

Step 7: Launch Ground Control

Launch Ground Control using the command python main.py from within the Ground Control folder which contains the file main.py

Note: Possible Window Resize Error

If the window doesn't repaint after being resized then it's possible you have pygame installed and being used as the Kivy Window Provider instead of SDL2 - you will see "...[Window] Provider: pygame" in the startup messages. Fix is to run:
pip uninstall kivy
pip uninstall pygame
USE_OSX_FRAMEWORKS=0 pip install --no-cache-dir kivy