- Our software library provides a free download of Mono 6.8.0.123 for Mac. The latest installer takes up 314.6 MB on disk. Monoframework-mre-2.10.98.macos10.xamarin.x86.dmg is the frequent file name to indicate this app's installer. The most popular versions of Mono for Mac are 2.1 and 2.0.
- Mono for Mac is a software platform designed to allow developers to easily create cross platform applications part of the.NET Foundation. Sponsored by Microsoft, Mono is an open source implementation of Microsoft's.NET Framework based on the ECMA standards for C# and the Common Language Runtime. A growing family of solutions and an active and enthusiastic contributing.
by Dan Belcher (Last modified: 18 Feb 2019)
Mono for Mac 2020 full offline installer setup for Mac Mono for Mac is a software platform designed to allow developers to easily create cross platform applications part of the.NET Foundation. Sponsored by Microsoft, Mono is an open source implementation of Microsoft's.NET Framework based on the ECMA standards for C# and the Common Language.
This guide covers all the necessary tools required to author Rhino plugins on Mac.
By the end of this guide, you should have all the tools installed necessary for authoring, building, and debugging C# .NET plugins using RhinoCommon in Rhino for Mac.
Prerequisites
This guide presumes you have an:
- Apple Mac running macOS Sierra (10.12.5) or later.
- Rhino 5 for Mac (5.1) or later.
Install Xcode
Xcode is Apple’s development platform and IDE. Though it is not absolutely required that you install Xcode in order to build, debug, and run C# plugins using RhinoCommon, it is recommended that you do. In short: the Visual Studio for Mac works best with Xcode installed.
Step-by-Step
- Xcode is free in the Mac App Store. Click the View in Mac App Store button.
- Click the Get > Install App button underneath the Xcode icon.
- You will be prompted for your Apple ID (required to download apps on the App Store).
- Xcode is large download - nearly 2.6 GB in size. You can monitor the progress of the download in Launchpad. When Xcode is finished downloading an installing, it will be your /Applications folder.
- Launch Xcode. On initial launch, Xcode will install some additional components.
- Quit Xcode.
Install Visual Studio for Mac
Visual Studio for Mac (formerly Xamarin Studio, formerly MonoDevelop) is required to build RhinoCommon plugins on macOS. The core components of the Mono platform that are required are the Mono Framework and Visual Studio for Mac. Please check out the What are Mono and Xamarin? guide for more information.
Step-by-Step
- Download Visual Studio for Mac.
- Visual Studio for Mac uses an Installer app, which downloads and installs the components that you select. Once you have downloaded the VisualStudioInstaller.dmg, double-click it to mount the disk image. Double-click the big Install Visual Studio.app icon to launch the installer.
- You must accept the Visual Studio Software License Agreement.
- Visual Studio for Mac can install the following items:
- Visual Studio + Profiler (required)
- Android + Xamarin.Forms1 (optional)
- iOS + Xamarin.Forms2 (optional)
- macOS - formerly Xamarin.Mac3 (optional)
- Workbooks and Inspector (optional)
- Verify that Visual Studio + Profiler is checked and click Continue.
- If you do not have Xcode installed, the installer may prompt you. See Install Xcode above.
- The installer downloads and installs: Mono Framework and Visual Studio for Mac
- When the installer is finished, click the Launch Visual Studio button.
- Visual Studio - along with the Mono Framework and Profiler are now installed.
- Visual Studio is installed in your /Applications folder. You will want to drag its icon to your Dock for future use or - if it’s running - right/option-click the icon in the Dock and select Keep in Dock.
Install the RhinoCommon Extension
The RhinoCommon AddIn/Extension is required to debug your plugin code in an active session of Rhino for Mac. Additionally, it contains project templates to get you started creating plugins quickly.
Step-by-Step
- Visit the AddIn’s GitHub releases page and find the Latest release in the list of releases.
- Download the .mpack file in the list of Downloads on that release. For example, at the time of this writing, the Latest release download is entitled RhinoXamarinStudioAddIn_7.4.3.1.mpack.
- Launch Visual Studio for Mac if it not already open.
- Navigate to Visual Studio > Extensions……
- Click the Install from file… button in the lower left-hand corner.
- Navigate to the .mpack file you downloaded in step 2 above.
- Click Install. The plugin should install.
- IMPORTANT: You must Quit and Restart Visual Studio for Mac.
- Navigate to Extensions Studio > Add-ins.. > Installed tab. Verify that RhinoCommon Plugin Support exists under the Debugging category. If it’s there, you have successfully installed the Extension and you are DONE.
Next Steps
Congratulations! You have all the tools necessary to build a RhinoCommon plugin for Rhino for Mac. Now what?
Check out the Your First Plugin (Mac) guide for instructions building - your guessed it - your first plugin.
Footnotes
- Xamarin.Android is used to build C# .NET applications for Android devices. This is useful to have installed if you wish to use the RhinoMobile toolkit, but not required for RhinoCommon in Rhino for Mac. ↩
- Xamarin.iOS is used to build C# .NET applications for Apple iOS devices. This is useful to have installed if you wish to use the RhinoMobile toolkit, but not required for RhinoCommon in Rhino for Mac. ↩
- Xamarin.Mac is Xamarin’s proprietary closed-source toolkit build on the open-source MonoMac (aka Mono for macOS). Xamarin.Mac provides a commercial license of Mono, bindings to additional frameworks, and the ability to create self-contained application bundles that do not require mono. Rhino for Mac does not currently use Xamarin.Mac. ↩
Introduction to Mono on macOS
Mono supports macOS version 10.9 (Mavericks) and later.
You can use Mono on macOS to build server, console and GUI applications. Read below for the options available for GUI application development.
If you are interested in creating native GUI applications, use the MonoMac bindings and our MonoDevelop add-in. Read the description on MonoMac for more information on how to get started.
Installing Mono on macOS
You can use Mono either as a runtime to run existing application, or as an SDK to develop new applications with Mono.
Visit the download page to find the latest macOS package. Run it and follow the instructions there, you can either get a basic runtime, or a complete runtime plus a software development kit.
If you plan on developing applications with Mono, we suggest that you also install the MonoDevelop IDE after you install Mono.
The Mono package includes:
- The Mono Runtime
- GUI Toolkits: Windows.Forms and Gtk# for macOS.
- Note: the MonoMac GUI toolkit for native macOS GUI development is currently a separate download.
- SDK: C#, Visual Basic compilers, assemblers and tools
- XSP ASP.NET server
- Manual pages.
This package installs as a framework into
/Library/Frameworks/Mono.framework
(the same way the Java packages are installed). The executable binaries can be found in /Library/Frameworks/Mono.framework/Versions/Current/bin
. If you’d like to access the mono manpages you’ll have to add /Library/Frameworks/Mono.framework/Versions/Current/man
to your manpath. The macOS Mono package does not include Gtk#, XSP or mod_mono. These will have to be compiled from source.Our packages currently require macOS 10.9 or better, for older versions, you will need to build from source code.
Using Mono on macOS
At this point, you must use Mono from the command line, the usual set of commands that are available on other ports of Mono are available.
To build applications you can use “mcs”, to run then you can use mono.
From a Terminal shell, you can try it out:
Most users would be using the MonoDevelop IDE to create their projects.
You will have a choice of GUI toolkits for building your application, from pure cross platform, to Mac-specific using MonoMac.
32 and 64 bit support
The Mono packages published on this web site provide both a 32-bit and a 64-bit Mono VM.
Starting from Mono 5.2 the
mono
command defaults to 64-bit, you can use the --arch=32/64
switch to control the bitness.The 64 bit support has a few limitations today:
- Our Windows.Forms implementation uses Carbon, and as such, it would not work with a 64-bit Mono.
Building Client Applications
There are a few choices to build client applications on macOS, you should pick the technology that better fits your goals, your choices are:
Toolkit | Runs on Linux | Runs on Windows | Runs on Mac | Binding Style | License | Status |
MonoMac | no | no | yes | Strongly typed C# binding to Cocoa APIs | MIT X11 | Actively developed, builds on the design lessons from MonoTouch but still incomplete. This will be the new default binding for Mono on macOS. Separate download. |
Gtk# | yes | yes | yes | Strongly typed C# binding to the cross platform Gtk+ API. Applications look foreign on macOS. | LGPL v2 | Actively developed, cross platform. Bundled with Mono. |
Windows.Forms | yes | yes | yes | Cross platform implementation of Microsoft’s Windows.Forms. Applications look foreign on macOS. | MIT X11 | The Windows.Forms API was frozen in time by Microsoft. Bundled with Mono. |
MonObjc | no | no | yes | Binding to the native Cocoa APIs, but requires manual use of Objective-C selectors to work with, relatively thin wrapper around the underlying APIs. | LGPL v3 | Actively developed. Separate download. |
CocoaSharp | no | no | yes | Binding to the native Cocoa APIs, but requires manual use of Objective-C selectors to work with, relatively thin wrapper around the underlying APIs. | MIT X11 | No longer developed, no longer maintained, deprecated. Bundled with Mono. |
Running Mono applications on macOS
Running applications on macOS is very similar to linux systems, from the terminal:
For GTK# applications, it’s easiest to run them the same way but using xterm from X11.app
Windows.Forms
Mono For Mac
Mono’s implementation of the System.Windows.Forms API is built on top of Carbon and can only run with Mono on 32 bit systems. The look and feel of System.Windows.Forms applications mimics the Windows style and does not currently render like a native macOS application.
Third Party Libraries
ObjC# is a transparent two way bridge that allows the CLR to access the rich underlying ObjectiveC frameworks as well as providing direct access to the CLR frameworks from the ObjectiveC language.
Uninstalling Mono on macOS
Mono Framework Windows
Run this script in a terminal: