Add support for ARM64 platforms

[gastonmuijtjens]

Now that ARM64 is gaining popularity (mostly due to Apple Silicon on macOS), I would like to know whether it is possible to add support for the ARM64 platform to this library?

Trying to use the library on a M1 Mac raises the following exception:

System.DllNotFoundException: Unable to load shared library \u0027nfd\u0027 or one of its dependencies. In order to help diagnose loading problems, consider setting the DYLD_PRINT_LIBRARIES environment variable: dlopen(libnfd, 0x0001): tried: \u0027libnfd\u0027 (no such file), \u0027/System/Volumes/Preboot/Cryptexes/OSlibnfd\u0027 (no such file), \u0027/usr/lib/libnfd\u0027 (no such file, not in dyld cache), \u0027libnfd\u0027 (no such file), \u0027/usr/local/lib/libnfd\u0027 (no such file), \u0027/usr/lib/libnfd\u0027 (no such file, not in dyld cache)\n   at NativeFileDialogSharp.Native.NativeFunctions.NFD_OpenDialogMultiple(Byte* filterList, Byte* defaultPath, nfdpathset_t* outPaths)\n   at NativeFileDialogSharp.Dialog.FileOpenMultiple(String filterList, String defaultPath)\n 

I did some research already, and it turns out that ARM64 support for all platforms was already added a while ago to the devel branch of nativefiledialog. I assume that we can relatively easy add the runtimes for ARM64 to this project?

Thanks in advance.

[milleniumbug]

If the original library added support, then it's matter of compiling it toward the target platform.

I don't own the Apple hardware, so I see two ways to go from here:

• use the hackintosh setup that I've used to compile the native library for Mac in the first place and cross-compile
• use some CI/CD setup that supports targeting the ARM64 Apple ecosystem

[gastonmuijtjens]

@milleniumbug Thanks for your reply. Me and my team does have both ARM64- and x64-based Macs available. If you could give us some guidance on how to compile the original native library, I can give it a try.

[kaylumah]

Hi @milleniumbug I am running into the same issue, and might be able to help. If you can give some pointers on how to compile the native library that would be most appreciated :)

[milleniumbug]

I have merged my changes and the changes at the upstream devel branch into https://github.com/milleniumbug/nativefiledialog/tree/devel
It turned out to be thankfully pretty simple as there were no changes to the source interface or binary interface, aside from an identical change to the one I already did (exposing NFD_Free as a public interface)

The other part is gonna be more difficult because I don't remember the exact way I made macOS x64 compile it, I do have a zsh history and browsing through I can give some vague directions:

• clone the devel branch of my fork
• make sure make and clang++ are available from the Terminal. If they're not already shipped with the system, it's likely a matter of either a.) installing Xcode, or b.) doing something with Homebrew
• from the terminal, go to the build/gmake_macosx directory
• run make config=release_arm64
• assuming nothing fails (for me doing the above command fails, presumably because I don't have the arm64 development kit installed), the compiled library should appear in build/lib/Release/arm64/libnfd.dylib

[kaylumah]

@milleniumbug thank you for the guidance, I now have the build/lib/Release/arm64/libnfd.dylib file, but it does not show up as a git change.

So

1. how do I verify the file is correct
2. how do I get it back into source control

Thanks
Max

[milleniumbug]

Yeah, it won't show in git status as a change because it's a compiled library file, you typically do not commit these to the repo. But that's fine because I don't really want it in the native library repo, I'd like to see it in the runtimes directory in the C# wrapper library

https://github.com/milleniumbug/NativeFileDialogSharp/tree/main/NativeFileDialogSharp/runtimes

Adding it there under the osx-arm64/native directory should do the trick, and the only necessary thing would be using dotnet publish to create a NuGet library package.

[kaylumah]

Create a PR to add the lib, anything else needed from my part?
Do we need to change the csproj or something?

On Monday I can do a local Nuget pack to verify it is working as expected

[milleniumbug]

I have published the version including the ARM64 native library into NuGet as pre-release version 0.6.0-alpha - check it out if it works for you (you may need to select the "Include prerelease" option to see it in the listing of your IDE)

https://www.nuget.org/packages/NativeFileDialogSharp/0.6.0-alpha

[kaylumah]

I was able to verify that on arm64 Mac I can now open the file dialog :)

[milleniumbug]

Before I make it an actual release I'd like to see a bit more testing. @gastonmuijtjens , can you check on your devices?

[gastonmuijtjens]

@milleniumbug I can confirm it works on both an Intel (x64) Mac and Apple Silicon (ARM64) Mac now. Thanks to you and @kaylumah for your effort. Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance.

[chrisyarbrough]

Thanks for the 0.6.0-alpha version! I was glad to find it and can also confirm it works on my Apple M1 chip with macOS Sonoma.

[ddebruijne]

Quite late to the party, but I recently started using this library and switched to 0.6.0-alpha, it fixed the file picker for me on OSX Sequoia with an M1 macbook pro.