sbmelhuish: After upgrading from macOS Catalina to Big Sur (11.1), I found that Pool of Radiance (1.3) stopped working: At launch, the dosbox window was solid white and unresponsive.

TL;DR: I fixed the problem by downloading DOSBox 0.74-3-3 and using that to replace the version bundled in the Pool of Radiance app, which was 0.74-2.

Darvond: So is MacOS really that neutered that you have to drop to the bash to change permissions?

Darvond: Well, alright, let me rephrase: Is MacOS 's Finder so neutered that making a symlink requires such an effort? Even something like Xfe can make Symlinks graphically.

sbmelhuish: After upgrading from macOS Catalina to Big Sur (11.1), I found that Pool of Radiance (1.3) stopped working: At launch, the dosbox window was solid white and unresponsive.

TL;DR: I fixed the problem by downloading DOSBox 0.74-3-3 and using that to replace the version bundled in the Pool of Radiance app, which was 0.74-2.

I investigated and fixed the problem as follows.

First, I used the Terminal app to dig into the application bundle. It was in my home directory's Applications folder, so I did `cd ~/Applications/Pool of Radiance.app/Contents/Resources`. From there, `ls -al` shows the dosbox binary. Running `./dosbox -version` shows "DOSBox version 0.74-2". Running `./dosbox` by itself launches a blank white window, with a bit of status/debugging information in Terminal; from Terminal, I could hit <control>-<c> to quit back out. So: I've demonstrated that the DOSBox included with Pool of Radiance doesn't work.

Then I downloaded the latest release of DOSBox, 0.74-3-3, from the DOSBox project site (dosbox.com; it seems the forum software won't let me provide a direct link).

From the Finder, I opened the .dmg (disk image) file that was downloaded. I didn't attempt to install it. From Terminal, I could navigate into its application bundle: `cd /Volumes/DOSBox\ 0.74-3-3/dosbox.app/Contents/MacOS`. Running `./DOSBox -version` shows "DOSBox version 0.74-3-3". Interestingly, `./DOSBox` launches an apparently-fine DOS window, not the blank white window of 0.74-2. This suggests that the new version of DOSBox might work just fine.

So, I patched Pool of Radiance as follows.

First, I navigated back into the Pool of Radiance app bundle as above, and renamed the included dosbox binary: `mv dosbox dosbox-0.74-2`. I then copied the new version from its mounted disk image: `cp /Volumes/DOSBox\ 0.74-3-3/dosbox.app/Contents/MacOS/DOSBox ./dosbox-0.74-3-3`. Finally, I made a symbolic link so that `dosbox` — the binary name expected by Pool of Radiance — launches the new version: `ln -s dosbox-0.74-3-3 dosbox`.

The dosbox directory inside the Pool of Radiance app bundle now looks like the following:

% pwd
/Users/xxxxx/Applications/Pool of Radiance.app/Contents/Resources/dosbox
% ls -al
total 43120
drwxr-xr-x 6 xxxxx xxxxx 192 Dec 23 10:56 .
drwxr-xr-x 14 xxxxx xxxxx 448 Oct 6 2019 ..
lrwxr-xr-x 1 xxxxx xxxxx 15 Dec 23 10:56 dosbox -> dosbox-0.74-3-3
-rwxr-xr-x 1 xxxxx xxxxx 11032208 Oct 6 2019 dosbox-0.74-2
-rwxr-xr-x@ 1 xxxxx xxxxx 10955136 Dec 23 10:55 dosbox-0.74-3-3
-rwxr-xr-x 1 xxxxx xxxxx 83966 Oct 6 2019 dosbox.ico

Note that I have both versions, and "dosbox" is an alias for "dosbox-0.74-3-3". (I could just as well delete the old 0.74-2 version, and rename the 0.74-3-3 version to simply "dosbox", but I was feeling conservative.)

The Pool of Radiance app now successfully launches, with a normal (not blank white) dosbox window.

I don't know where the GoG Galaxy installer stores games — maybe in ~/Library somewhere? — but I would guess that this method would work the same in its location.

sbmelhuish: After upgrading from macOS Catalina to Big Sur (11.1), I found that Pool of Radiance (1.3) stopped working: At launch, the dosbox window was solid white and unresponsive.

TL;DR: I fixed the problem by downloading DOSBox 0.74-3-3 and using that to replace the version bundled in the Pool of Radiance app, which was 0.74-2.