Help wanted: macOS support testing

[antoinecellerier]

Status

Mac ARM (Apple Silicon): partially confirmed working by @alexander-magon on a UT181A with a CH9329 cable — building from source, running the GUI, and the UT181A protocol's init / framing / VDC parsing all work end-to-end (issue #5, PR #8). What's still needed on ARM:

• Confirmation that the pre-built ARM release binary works (only source builds have been exercised so far)
• Coverage of additional meters / modes beyond UT181A VDC

Mac Intel (x86_64): completely untested. This is where help is most needed — we have zero data points on Intel Macs.

What we need

Ideal: someone with an Intel Mac and any supported UNI-T or Voltcraft meter. ARM Mac users testing the packaged release or additional meters are also welcome.

The CP2110 USB adapter is a standard HID device, so macOS should recognize it via IOKit without any driver installation. The code compiles for macOS and the dependencies (hidapi, eframe/egui) all have macOS support.

Verification steps

1. Download or build

Either grab the macOS binary from the latest release (specify whether you used dmm-tools-macos-aarch64.zip or dmm-tools-macos-x86_64.zip), or build from source:

# Install Rust if needed: https://rustup.rs
cargo build --workspace

Report whether the build/download works. If the build fails, paste the error output.

2. Device detection

Plug in the CP2110 USB adapter and run:

cargo run --bin dmm-cli -- list

Expected: The device appears in the list.

If not found, check:

ioreg -p IOUSB -l | grep CP2110

If ioreg sees it but list doesn't, there may be a permissions issue — check System Settings > Privacy & Security > Input Monitoring.

3. Live reading (if device detected)

Turn on the meter, activate USB mode (long-press USB/Hz until S icon appears), then:

cargo run --bin dmm-cli -- read --count 5

Expected: 5 measurement lines matching what the meter's LCD shows.

4. GUI (if CLI works)

cargo run --bin dmm-gui

Expected: Window opens, shows live measurements and graph after clicking Connect.

5. Remote commands (optional)

cargo run --bin dmm-cli -- command hold

Expected: Meter toggles HOLD mode.

What to report

Please include:

• macOS version (e.g., Sequoia 15.3)
• Mac model / chip (e.g., Intel MacBook Pro 2019, MacBook Air M2)
• Meter model (e.g., UT61E+)
• Whether you used the pre-built binary or built from source
• Result of each step above (pass/fail + any error output)
• If anything failed: output of RUST_LOG=dmm_lib=trace cargo run --bin dmm-cli -- read

Even "it works, no issues" is extremely valuable — it lets us mark the platform/architecture as confirmed.

[alexander-magon]

It would be great to have a small button in the UI, like “minimize/maximize.” The result of pressing the button would be to keep only the measurement frame visible in the window (with a maximize icon). I’m not sure if there are options to also set the application window to be “always on top” (I suppose it depends on the OS).
This way, the app can be placed in a corner of the monitor during microscope work.

[antoinecellerier]

Good idea. If you go in settings and disable other UI elements you already get a "big meter" mode. See https://github.com/antoinecellerier/dmm-tools/blob/main/docs/gui-reference.md#big-meter-mode . Maybe having a simple in UI toggle would help discoverability? Is that kind of what you were thinking @alexander-magon ?

[antoinecellerier]

Also if you can confirm things run fine on macos I'll mark it as officially supported and add release builds.

[alexander-magon]

I saw those checkboxes, but the goal is to be able to minimize everything quickly or switch between a very minimal state and the currently configured one (without manually changing checkboxes in between).

Clearing all the checkboxes still leaves the window large and not minimized (the screenshot shows a manually resized window; as you can see, it is still quite large), so the "minimize" button should also resize the window itself, not just its frames (or free up more frames).

I will try to do the tests during this weekend.

[antoinecellerier]

Changed to this behavior. Let me know what you think.

Big Meter Mode

Activated when both graph and recording panels are hidden (via settings or the toggle). The reading display scales to fill the available space — useful as a bench-mount display or for presentations.

Use the ⊞ button (near the remote control buttons) or Ctrl+B to quickly enter big meter mode — this temporarily hides graph, recording, statistics, and specifications without changing your saved settings. Click ⊟ or press Ctrl+B again to return to your normal layout.

If all panels are already hidden via settings, ⊞ restores all panels to their defaults.

[alexander-magon]

Cannot minimize the window (the OS does not allow it); it seems the app uses or declares more display space than it requires.

[antoinecellerier]

Interesting. Here it can get quite small ... but maybe there's some DPI differences or something?

maybe you can check on your end?

For reference:
The minimum window size is set in crates/ut61eplus-gui/src/main.rs:162:
.with_min_inner_size([400.0, 300.0])
And the side panel has its own minimum width constant at crates/ut61eplus-gui/src/app/mod.rs:34:
const SIDE_PANEL_MIN_WIDTH: f32 = 180.0;

and likely this should be its own GitHub issue. Not the MacOS support testing issue :-)

[antoinecellerier]

@alexander-magon I was kind of bored so went ahead with the following changes (it's all too easy with claude ...):

• Hide window decorations — Ctrl+D toggle, persisted (18c691e)
• Minimal big meter mode — Ctrl+B cycles off → full → minimal (value + mode only, no top bar/buttons) (822df2b)
• Dynamic minimum window size — computed from rendered content, adapts to zoom and display mode (f466134)
• Smaller minimum font — big meter scales down to 12pt for tiny windows; margins and toggle button adapt (0840d6e)
• Inline mode at wide aspect ratios — mode/flags join the value line when width allows without shrinking the reading (63c750f)

[alexander-magon]

Yeah, lots of improvements, thanks!
On top is also works fine.

[antoinecellerier]

perfect! once you confirm your multimeter is working as expected across all modes I'll tag a new release. thanks for giving all of this a try @alexander-magon

[antoinecellerier]

@alexander-magon also if you have a bit of time, could you confirm the macos arm release build at https://github.com/antoinecellerier/dmm-tools/actions/runs/24158392637 works properly? that way I'll know for sure that packaged bits work fine. thanks!