How to install Dia on OSX (and have it run)

install_dia_osx.md

brew cask install dia

After his it won't run because DISPLAY=:0 env var is not set

vim /Applications/Dia.app/Contents/Resources/bin/dia

Add the following content to line 40 (right before the oascript call)

#########################################################
# Ref: http://navkirats.blogspot.de/2014/10/dia-diagram-mac-osx-yosemite-fix-i-use.html
versionOSX=$(sw_vers -productVersion | awk -F '.' '{print $(NF-1)}')
[[ ${versionOSX} -ge 10 ]] && export DISPLAY=:0
#########################################################

Thank you sir, Dia was giving me problems after it stopped working, this fixed the problem..

Year 2023 use: brew install dia --cask

The original script seems to not parsing macOS major version as it should (it's returning "6" instead of "12" on macOS Monterey 12.6.7), so you'll need to add before the line 40 the following code instead:

#########################################################
# Ref: http://navkirats.blogspot.de/2014/10/dia-diagram-mac-osx-yosemite-fix-i-use.html
versionOSX=$(sw_vers -productVersion)
[[ ${versionOSX%%.*} -ge 10 ]] && export DISPLAY=:0
#########################################################

For users that installed Dia using Homebrew and uses macOS on a language different than English, it seems that parsing AppleCollationOrder to detect user locale isn't working anymore (used to work on Tiger machines) and is returning pt instead of pt_BR on my system, so LANG is wrong and Dia is loading Portuguese-Portugal instead of Portuguese-Brazil UI.
Replace the lines 125-126 with:
LANGSTR=`defaults read "Apple Global Domain" AppleLocale 2>/dev/null`

Also notice that Dia doesn't seems to provide access to protected folders (like User personal folders and Volumes), so it's not possible to access them through Dia by default.

Hi the editing of the scripting /Application.//.. line 40 This got it working on the m2 launched as an application, but I have Makefiles that use did in non-interactive mode. How to I add these to the PATH? in MAC M2?

Just had the same issue, thanks for working it out. I have another solution suggestion, which extends it's script and Makefile usage, which I require.

There is no need to introduce further logic into the script, if you are on newer versions of macOS, just hardcode display :0 into the dia-bin parameters and fix the dia script not passing on additional command line parameters in one go. So you can use it properly on the command line as well, e.g. scripts, Makefiles:

Change the last line, where it executes the actual dia binary, from:

File: /Applications/Dia.app/Contents/Resources/bin/dia

exec "$CWD/dia-bin" --integrated

to:

exec "$CWD/dia-bin" --integrated --display=:0 "$@"

and include /Applications/Dia.app/Contents/Resources/bin into your PATH/.profle and you are all set. Now you can start Dia.app as well call dia -e [...] from the command line if PATH is set.

If you want to prevent XQuartz from opening the additional terminal window, just put export DISPLAY=:0 like described above before the osascript call on line 40.

Thanks. It is working again on my Macbook M1 under Sonoma.

Thanks, still works on MacBook Pro M3 Pro, Sequoia 15.0