I've not really had time to reply to any of this, so apologies for the delay - but I'll try to catch up now.
Pidgeot, what version of Mac OS X are you building on?
It's all running on 10.8, as this is the only one I have any sort of access to.
And are you using the version of TK/TCL included with Mac OS X, or are you using the one from ActiveState? It looks like you're using the one included with the operating system.
IIRC, it's the built-in one. I think I looked at the ActiveState Tcl/Tk at one point, but something wasn't working (or it didn't pick up on it, or something) - it's been a while, so I'm afraid I don't remember exactly what went wrong.
I'm really excited for the upcoming version of PyLNP. Mr. Pidgeot, I would appreciate it if you would please build them again. I keep trying to build it myself, but they never turn out very good. Thank you!
It will be a little while longer, I think, but should be soon. There's one or two more things I'd like to take a look at before an update is released (0.12a, most likely), but I haven't had the time yet - hoping to find it during this week (possibly the weekend).
I've noticed some commits to maintain compatibility with 32-bit operating systems. It looks like there might be a plan to allow pack maintainers to bundle both 32- and 64-bit versions and let PyLNP select the appropriately-bitted version.
I assume you're talking about
this commit? I added this mainly in case we would end up needing it, but this was before the first proper 64-bit release was made, and it wasn't clear at the time exactly how they would end up being packaged. (There are also a few regarding baselines, but that's just to allow different versions of the downloads to be used.)
Here's an issue that might come up – a user plays at both home and work and keeps his Lazy Newb Pack synchronized over the internet, or maybe keeps the Lazy Newb Pack on a USB flash drive to play at two or more locations. What happens if the user tries to use the same pack on both a 32-bit and 64-bit computer? It might look like all the save files have been deleted.
Maybe that's not a very big deal, though. There probably aren't too many 32-bit users in 2016. I can't imagine that Dwarf Fortress would run very well on anything old enough to have included a 32-bit OS. And it would be a lot easier to include both 32- and 64-bit versions Dwarf Fortress in packs and have the user select which one to use upon launch. This would probably also prevent issues with users thinking their save files have been deleted, since they would know that they're using a different Dwarf Fortress folder.
If you really wanted to have seamless 32-bit support, though, maybe PyLNP could be set up to adjust both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Dwarf Fortress whenever the user adjusts the graphics, settings, mods, or whatever. Then when the user tries to launch Dwarf Fortress, PyLNP would first check the other-bitted version and move any save files that might be there over to the save folder of the version appropriately-bitted for the user's operating system.
Any thoughts on how continued support of 32-bit versions of Dwarf Fortress should be handled?
IMO, the best way to handle that from PyLNP's side is currently to just have two different folders.
Keeping two DFs in sync is *possible*, e.g. using symlinks, but I don't feel that integrating this into the UI is a particularly good idea, given that the number of people who would need this is very limited and it's a destructive operation to do this link (one of the DFs to be linked has all its data removed, and if done in the wrong order, that might lose a fair amount of important stuff). The only thing that couldn't easily be handled like that is the DFHack toggle, since it involves renaming files on Windows (and those files would not have the same content, so PyLNP would have to explicitly know about the link).
*Personally* I would have preferred that DF simply provided both sets of binaries, and then PyLNP could possibly provide an option (Auto/32-bit/64-bit), but of course that's not really feasible given the way the DF builds are distributed (the binary file contents differ, but the file names are the same).
In general, of course, playing the same save on both a 32-bit and a 64-bit build could be a problem anyway, due to the memory limit. If one needed to play at multiple locations, it would be best to use the same DF for that very reason, so I don't see it as something that really needs any major changes at the moment.