which version of osx are you using?

OSX 10.5.8 
Note: WITHOUT Spotlight !

the binary is created on OSX 10.6. There have been various reports that this bluefish binary will not run on older versions. Unfortunately I have no access to OSX 10.4 or 10.5...

Marty, could you clarify if you are using a prebuilt binary (and if so where you got it) vs compiling from source on your 10.5 machine?

bluefish 2.0.1

This Version of Bluefish was build with:
./configure  '--prefix=/opt/local' '--mandir=/opt/local/share/man' '--infodir=/opt/local/share/info' '--sysconfdir=/opt/local/etc' '--with-icon-path=/opt/local/share/pixmaps' '--without-freedesktop_org-menu' '--without-freedesktop_org-mime' '--without-gnome2_4-mime' '--without-gnome2_4-appreg' 'CC=/usr/bin/gcc-4.0' 'CFLAGS=-pipe -O2 -arch i386' 'LDFLAGS=-L/opt/local/lib -arch i386' 'CPPFLAGS=-I/opt/local/include'

is this information sufficiently ?

i get this with macports
ver.: bluefish @2.0.1_0

Details come from this Site: http://trac.macports.org/browser/trunk/dports/editors/bluefish/Portfile

1	# $Id$
2	
3	PortSystem              1.0
4	
5	name                    bluefish
6	conflicts               bluefish-devel
7	version                 2.0.1
8	categories              editors www
9	platforms               darwin
10	maintainers             nomaintainer
11	homepage                http://bluefish.openoffice.nl/
12	description             A powerful editor for web designers
13	
14	long_description        Bluefish is a powerful editor for experienced web designers and \
15	                        programmers. Bluefish supports many programming and markup languages \
16	                        but it focuses on editing dynamic and interactive websites.
17	
18	dist_subdir             bluefish
19	distname                bluefish-${version}
20	
21	master_sites            sourceforge:bluefish \
22	                        http://www.bennewitz.com/bluefish/stable/source/
23	
24	checksums               md5     9b672411369bd580421f832214bf65b3 \
25	                        sha1    5e00afd98cc65b41140188525031bba39c196e91 \
26	                        rmd160  86d0aa91faf0dbeef2d15d258005513defd746c2
27	
28	use_bzip2               yes
29	
30	depends_lib             port:gtk2 \
31	                        port:libxml2 \
32	                        port:enchant \
33	                        port:pcre
34	
35	configure.args          --mandir=${prefix}/share/man \
36	                        --infodir=${prefix}/share/info \
37	                        --sysconfdir=${prefix}/etc \
38	                        --with-icon-path=${prefix}/share/pixmaps \
39	                        --without-freedesktop_org-menu \
40	                        --without-freedesktop_org-mime \
41	                        --without-gnome2_4-mime \
42	                        --without-gnome2_4-appreg
43	
44	destroot.destdir        DESTDIR=${destroot}
45	
46	variant nosplash {
47	    configure.args-append --disable-splash-screen
48	}
49	
50	variant no_spellcheck description {Disable spell-check feature} {
51	    depends_lib-delete port:enchant
52	    configure.args-append --disable-spell-check
53	}
54	
55	if {![variant_isset no_spellcheck]} {
56	    # enchant is not universal
57	    universal_variant no
58	}
59	
60	variant tidy {
61	    depends_run bin:tidy:tidy
62	}

Note: Version 2.0.1.0 compiled and installed with MacPorts 1.9.1 works fine.

Googling around suggests the "unknown load command" error is a symptom of a binary built on 10.X being run in 10.(less-than-X) when the binary has not specifically been built for backward compatibility. Building on one's own system is obviously not going to have this situation because the compiler assumes the local system is what it is:) The manpage for ld has at least one that sounds likely:

     -macosx_version_min version
                 This is set to indicate the oldest Mac OS X version that that
                 the output is to be used on.  Specifying a later version
                 enables the linker to assumes features of that OS in the out-
                 put file.  The format of version is a Mac OS X version number
                 such as 10.4 or 10.5

So if bluefish is distributing binaries, it might want to build them with "-macosx_version_min 10.5" (I think it's an LDFLAGS or some similar variable?). That would allow users of current and "previous" OS X to use it. 10.4...meh, even apple doesn't seem to provide updates for that years-obsolete thing, and the higher you set your minimum the more features the linker can take advantage of.

To get it working under OSX 10.5, change the following line in confix.osxapp:

CFLAGS="-g -Wall -arch i386 -isysroot /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.6.sdk -mmacosx-version-min=10.6 -O2 -DOSXAPP -DRELPLUGINPATH=\\\"../Resources\\\""

Where it says 10.6 change that to 10.5. Then recompile. It will then both work under 10.5 & 10.6.

the 2.0.3 package should work on 10.5 and 10.6, can we close this bug?

Marty, can you confirm that issue has been fixed ?

Please feel free to reopen this bug if the problem still occurs with a newer
version of bluefish.