Trying to verify that GTK is installed?

SaabApple wrote:
My sylpheed e-mail software ./configure still does not recognize that GTK is installed.

Why would you want something like that when you can use Apple Mail?

A) how do I verify it is installed correctly?

There should be some included example programs I would think. I have no doubt that it is installed correctly. However, it is quite unlikely that you will get any off-the-shelf GTK program to work correctly with it. There is a reason why there are so few Mac versions of the "platform independent" GTK and those that do exist are really ugly.

Plus, with that e-mail client you have a few other dependencies that are even more obscure.

B) how do I tell the ./configure what directory GTK is installed into so that it can recognize it and continue?

Run "./configure --help" and it should have some option like "--gtk-prefix". Again, another word of caution - not all configure-scripts are equal. There may not be any such option. You may have to use some other prefix option to get it to work.

SaabApple wrote:
checking for GTK+ - version >= 2.4.0... no
* Could not run GTK+ test program, checking why...
* The test program failed to compile or link. See the file config.log for the
* exact error that occured. This usually means GTK+ is incorrectly installed.
configure: error: Test for Gtk failed. See the 'INSTALL' for help.

That is from the configure script in the e-mail program, correct? You need to look at GTK itself and find out where that is. It should have some sort of example programs with it. If you downloaded the MacOS X installer and installed it, I don't doubt it is properly installed. I do think it is installed somewhere that the e-mail program doesn't expect. I also think you may be the first Mac user to ever try to build said e-mail program. Good luck with that.

Any idea, I know where GTK is installed, how do I tell ./configure where it is?

Run "./configure --help" and it should tell you, hopefully. If not, look at the provided documentation. There is no guarantee that this information is clearly listed or even configurable, however. It all depends on how well this particular configure script was put together.

I normally try very hard to help people get open-source code to build and run properly. I am a little hesitant with these cross-platform GUI tools such as GTK, wxwidgets, etc. because they are just so ugly. Plus, as I mentioned from your other thread, GTK seems pretty poorly put together. You can make this work, but you are going to have to do some digging.

While I thoroughly detest such tools, MacPorts or Fink might allow you to get this program up and running faster. Don't expect to ever build any open-source code correctly after installing any of these port packages, however. While I hate to admit it, ports packages can be useful for getting really junky open-source code like this working on a Mac. If you have any problems with it, however, it will be a mess to track down. I do not recommend it, I am just mentioning it before someone else does so I can do a pre-emptive trashing of it.

In your case, however, you are in a tight spot. Any way you cut it, you have some work to do to get that e-mail program working.