Pro Motion NG is created with software development systems designed to be used on Microsoft Windows systems.
However there is a great project called “Wine” (https://www.winehq.org/). The authors did an awesome job creating an adapter that allows Windows applications to run on Mac OS and Linux systems.
Before you buy the software please check thoroughly if the application runs to your satisfaction on your specific system! When you have no license key then the Free Edition mode is active. This suites well to check typical app functions and behavior.
We did our best to provide maximum compatibility with Wine. There are few small issues and limitations as described below but they shouldn’t hurt.
Linux
There are different flavors of Linux around and they typically come with their own Wine version to be installed. You can of course these packages, but it’s possible that they are not up to date.
For Ubuntu/Mint you can also add individual application sources and install the latest versions of Wine. This is recommended because it enables you to install the latest stable version which is typically much newer that the one that ships with a Linux distribution.
Mac OSX
There is also a version of Wine for Mac OSX to run Windows applications. It does not come with the standard app store that Apple provides. Instead you have to open a terminal and install Wine manually.
Alternatively you can also check out tools that are built on Wine but come as an app package:
CrossOver (commercial)
PlayOnMac (free)
They use a UI to let you manage and install Windows software.
Installing and running Pro Motion NG with Wine
Once you installed Wine you can download Pro Motion NG and execute the command in the folder where you stored the file:
wine ./pro-motion-ng.exe
It will then launch the software installer which will guide you through the rest of the software installation. It’s recommended to let the installer create a desktop icon, because you can directly start the application with that icon.
With Windows the usage of installed software is different to what is typically done with Linux. Wine creates a workspace containing all the Windows files at the folder
~/.wine
Windows used letters to address drives and the typical root drive where applications are installed is “drive c:”. Wine will simulate this drive in the folder
~/.wine/drive_c
Windows software is then installed in sub folders like ‘Program Files’ and if you did not change the path during installation, Pro Motion NG will install to “Program Files/cosmigo/Pro Motion NG – V8”. To start the installed software without using a desktop icon as mentioned before, you just need to run
wine ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/cosmigo/Pro\ Motion\ NG\ -\ V8/pmotion.exe
Limitations and Things to know
Below you will find some known limitations when running Pro Motion NG on Mac OSX or Linux. If you find additional problems then please post them at the forum pages.
There are a lot of Linux flavors around and we can not check the compatibility with all packages and settings. When testing we used Linux Mint 18 Cinnamon and Ubuntu 16/18.
Default Skin and Dark Skin
Pro Motion NG comes with two skin flavors which display either based on either standard Windows desktop color scheme or an individual Dark Theme.
The default skin uses coloring and button styles as known from Windows XP which is the default desktop mode of Wine. The dark skin can be used, too but is not fully functional. Drop down boxes, menus, system dialogs (file open/save etc.) and the main window title bar are not using the dark skin. If this does not bother you then you can enable the dark skin manually in File/Preferences…
We hope that this glitch can be fixed soon by the Wine project developers.
Microsoft AVI files
The Microsoft video files can not be loaded or saved. Although there is basic support for this within Wine it just does not make sense to use this file type on Mac or Linux.
Help system
Pro Motion NG comes with a Windows help system file (pmotion.chm). It is not reliably handled by Wine, although there are systems where it seems to work. By default all help pages are opened online at the web site, e.g. when you press the F1 key to get context sensitive help for a dialog. You might want to find a CHM file viewer for your system on your own and open the CHM file with it if the online resources are not to your satisfaction.
If you use CrossOver by CodeWeavers then the built in help file works normally.
Pen pressure support
At the moment the pen pressure can not be used. We will try to find a solution for this in the future but at the moment it is not known if this is reliably possible.
Application windows
Typically Pro Motion NG allows you to place the single app windows where you want them to have, even outside of the main window, e.g. on a second display. Due to different effects on Mac OSX and Linux the initial setting is to use embedded windows instead. They can only be placed within the main application window.
If this bothers you please go to File/Preferences section Compatibility and deactivate “Embed Windows”.
On some Linux systems you may then see a separate task entry for each of the application windows. Unity combines these entries under the task icon, but other systems like Mint Cinnamon will have a separate entry in the task bar.
About box
Weirdly the about box with the built in credits scroller does not show on some Ubuntu systems. Hit the ESC key to close it once you opened it but it’s not visible.
Mac OS – Cmd Key
Shortcuts that use the “Alt” key must be executed with the Cmd key instead. This is how Wine decided to translate this key into the Apple world, for whatever reason. Some research showed that the Ctrl key should better be mapped to Cmd. If you feel the same then please leave a note in the forum space. Maybe we can change the behavior in the app bundle itself. Aside from that you might want to try Karabiner, a Mac OS keyboard customizer.