Fix macOS packaging with Homebrew Qt on Apple Silicon

[alesaccoia]

This fixes the macOS packaging flow for Apple Silicon/Homebrew Qt installs.

What changed:

• detect Qt tools and install paths with qtpaths instead of relying on QTDIR
• copy Qt translations from the discovered Qt installation
• make mac_deploy.sh fail fast if required Qt tools or plugins are missing
• deploy only the macOS plugins FocusWriter actually needs (libqcocoa, libqmacstyle, libqjpeg)
• update the macOS install instructions to mention the Homebrew Qt workflow

Why this is needed:

• the app itself builds on Apple Silicon once Qt 6 is installed
• the old deploy script assumes QTDIR/translations exists and lets macdeployqt sweep optional Homebrew Qt plugins
• on my Apple Silicon/Homebrew setup that produced a broken DMG, with unresolved QtPdf, QtSvg, and QtVirtualKeyboard plugin dependencies during deployment

Verification:

• brew install qt
• cmake -B build -S . -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
• cmake --build build -j8
• run ../mac_deploy.sh from the build directory
• verified the generated DMG mounts correctly
• verified FocusWriter.app inside the DMG passes codesign --verify --deep --strict

Tested on:

• Apple Silicon Mac
• Homebrew Qt 6

Please find the resulting .dmg here for testing

[gottcode]

Disabling the extra plugins doesn't seem to me to be the correct way to do things, and it will also prevent people from using backgrounds that aren't JPEG images. It seems like the better fix for that would be to solve why QtPdf, QtSvg (necessary for SVG backgrounds), and QtVirtualKeyboard are not getting their dependencies correctly added.

[alesaccoia]

Okay, I will give that a go

…

On Sat, 11 Apr 2026 at 21:40, Graeme Gott ***@***.***> wrote: *gottcode* left a comment (gottcode/focuswriter#213) <#213 (comment)> Disabling the extra plugins doesn't seem to me to be the correct way to do things, and it will also prevent people from using backgrounds that aren't JPEG images. It seems like the better fix for that would be to solve why QtPdf, QtSvg (necessary for SVG backgrounds), and QtVirtualKeyboard are not getting their dependencies correctly added. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#213 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAKSEP2VDFIBCUIN6URI2BD4VKNTNAVCNFSM6AAAAACXTUCO4SVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHM2DEMZQGA3DCNBZGU> . You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>