Everyone, I’m afraid to inform you that I will no longer be releasing KiCad binaries. But, official nightlies are coming, hopefully in a matter of weeks. And I haven’t left everyone out in the cold, there is a better way now, and lets you stay up to date with the latest revision 
: OS X homebrew KiCad tap! With library!
If I’m already successfully using the latest binary release from metacollin, then is there any particular reason for me to switch to the homebrew version rather than waiting for official nightlies?
NF6X: the homebrew version is --HEAD only, meaning it pulls the latest revision of the source code from the official KiCad development branch, then automatically builds and installs it as well as, optionally, lets you migrate your library to the online github repos (causing your libraries to be always up to date) if you want to but haven’t.
Whenever a new revision of KiCad comes out, you can follow the instructions in the tap’s README.md (which is also the text of the github page) to easily update your binaries to the newer version. I don’t know how much longer it will be before official nightlies start getting made - but this lets you build your own nightly whenever you want. Additionally, this builds everything so its specifically optimized for your system and OS X version, while the binary build is built for 10.8, and It happens to work on 10.9 and 10.10 too :).
But, many homebrew formula have downloadable binaries, the reason you would use homebrew over them is the same as any other. All files are kept in /usr/local, built against local dependencies which in turn are the optimal builds for your system, and the various other things homebrew brings.
The build settings are identical to my binary releases, so I wouldn’t call it ‘switching’. The homebrew tap lets users update or build KiCad to the latest version at will, so they are not at the mercy of people like me finding enough time to update it.
It’s not just for kicad though, it can also be used for library installation with non-homebrew versions of KiCad. It’s totally interoperable, and you can have a homebrew cutting edge build installed along side my binary release, and they will share a common library. I like to think I paid attention to as many details as I could think of and make everything ‘just work’ as best I could.
But if those are reasons to try building the tap or not is up to you. I imagine there will come a point where your version right now becomes outdated enough that you want a newer one, and maybe there will be nightlies being released by then, in which case you probably have little reason to bother. If there aren’t, well you have a backup option at least 
Thank you for the explanation. I think I will stick with the binary that I have for now, and when I find a need to upgrade, I’ll see whether official nightlies that are suitable have become available yet. At the moment, the only particular thing that I feel like I’m missing is having more Mac-like trackpad/scroll wheel support.
After doing some work with this version there is one serious bug(/change?) I’d like to warn everybody about:
When using DRC, pressing “Start DRC” used to output rule violations/problems as well as unconnected tracks. It doesn’t do that anymore! You have to press the “List Unconnected” separately to see the unconnected tracks.
Otherwise everything so far seems fine.
Cheers
ff
I am going to resume my unofficial binary builds - despite my earlier post. I talked to the devs, and the official response from the developers is that their position is simply, “users should not have to build KiCad to use KiCad.” So, I think it is safe to say that unofficial builds distributed while we wait for official ones are OK with them. On the OS X platform, which still has no options for a recent non-stable binary, unofficial binaries save them the effort while reaping the ‘rewards’ of a larger number of testers/users and, hopefully, bug reports.
I will post again in this thread and update the main topic soon with new binary builds. I would like to say once again, these are not stable builds, the stable version is 4029. Be aware of the risks before using unstable versions in a production setting.
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‘Upgrade Kicad Library.app’ addition.
I would love to try this out. I suspect my libraries don’t include everything I see on https://github.com/KiCad
could someone explain what all this .pretty business is about?
do you know why pcbnew or cvpcb search for the old folder reference where i’ve compiled the application after i’ve move it on Application folder from the Desktop? I have to compile directly in the
I know this is not about your homebrew tap, but nightlies are now officially available for download on http://downloads.kicad.org/osx/.