The Toolbox application is a data management and analysis tool for field linguists. It is developed by the SIL organization. More information may be found at their website: https://software.sil.org/toolbox/.

Toolbox is a Windows application, but it can run in macOS using an app called PlayOnMac. The steps in this article describe how to set up Toolbox to run in PlayOnMac.

Setup Steps

1. Download and extract Toolbox: http://www.fieldlinguiststoolbox.org/.
2. Download and install PlayOnMac: https://www.playonmac.com/en/download.html. Be sure to install the appropriate version for your version of macOS.
3. Open PlayOnMac.
4. Click No when prompted to help create a compatibility database.
5. In the PlayOnMac toolbar, click Configure.
6. If the configuration window doesn't appear, quit and relaunch PlayOnMac, then click Configure again.
7. Click New to start creating a new virtual drive.
8. Click Next.
9. Select 64 bits windows installation.
10. Click Next, even if the list of Wine versions is empty.
11. Name the virtual drive and click Next. The name is unimportant.
12. After the new virtual drive has been created, select it from the list in the configuration window.
13. Navigate to the Install components tab.
14. Select usp10 from the list and click Install.
15. Navigate to the Miscellaneous tab.
16. Click Open virtual drive's directory.
17. In the new Finder window, navigate into drive_c/Program Files (x86)/.
18. From the extracted Toolbox files, copy the ToolboxMacWine###.exe file into this folder, where ### is the Toolbox version number.
19. In PlayOnMac, navigate to the General tab.
20. Click Make a new shortcut from this virtual drive.
21. Select the Toolbox executable from the list and click Next.
22. Name the shortcut if desired.
23. Click Cancel.
24. Close the configuration window.

To launch Toolbox, double-click on the new shortcut listed in the main PlayOnMac screen.

Troubleshooting

• Unable to view or create folders within the macOS Documents folder.
  • macOS 11 added non-Unix permissions to many default profile folders, including Documents. These changes seem to prevent Toolbox via PlayOnMac from properly interacting with such folders. Try using a folder outside of Documents - i.e., a folder directly within your profile folder, /Users/username.