# BigZaphod/Chameleon

Chameleon is a port of Apple's UIKit for iOS (and some minimal related frameworks) to Mac OS X.

Repository: https://github.com/BigZaphod/Chameleon
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/bigzaphod-chameleon
Homepage: http://chameleonproject.org/
Language: Objective-C
License: BSD-3-Clause
License Family: permissive
Last push: 2015-04-14T20:54:08+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 32/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 5644, "days_push": 4159, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 3452, forks 568 (observed 2026-08-28T04:08:05.342357+00:00)

## What it is
Chameleon is a port of Apple's iOS UIKit framework (plus minimal related frameworks) to Mac OS X, designed as a drop-in replacement to ease porting iOS apps to the desktop. It was originally built by The Iconfactory to share the codebase of Twitterrific between Mac and iOS.

## Use cases
- port an iOS app to Mac OS X with minimal code changes
- reuse UIKit-based code on the desktop
- share one codebase between iOS and Mac apps
- adapt iOS UI conventions to native Mac behavior
- ship a Mac App Store app built from iOS code

## When to choose
- you have an older iOS 3.2-era UIKit app you want to bring to OS X quickly
- you want a drop-in UIKit substitute on the Mac with native-feeling adaptations like UIAlertView via NSAlert

## When to avoid
- you target modern iOS APIs - Chameleon only covers roughly iOS 3.2-era UIKit
- you need a maintained solution - the project has had no releases since 2015
- you're starting a new cross-platform Mac/iOS project - use Swift, Catalyst, or multiplatform frameworks instead

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: abandoned
- function: ui-components, mobile-framework
- domain: cross-platform, desktop-applications, developer-tools
- platform: cpp
- tags: uikit, objective-c, ios-to-mac-porting, appkit, drop-in-replacement, macos

## Member repositories
- BigZaphod/Chameleon (main) score 32

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:08:05.342357+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T18:37:33.345352+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/BigZaphod/Chameleon (fetched 2026-08-28T04:08:05.342357+00:00, sha 607e2886e8e0)
  - homepage: http://chameleonproject.org/ (fetched 2026-08-29T09:31:16.322731+00:00, sha 75014ce72ce6)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.