Rhino 5 for Mac is releasing soon available. Plugins are not now supported as of the 5.1 update
Two BIG things need to happen before plugins will be available for Rhino for Mac:
1. We provide plugin authoring tools to third-party developers. DONE (see below).
2. Third-party developers write their plugins for Rhino for Mac.
More details…
Regarding item 1: For the 5.1 update to Rhino for Mac, this is our first priority. RhinoCommon, Rhino’s cross-platform .NET SDK, is working on Rhino for Mac. There are a number of tasks we need to perform to get everything working smoothly (plugin wizards, SDK documentation, etc), but we do not foresee technical hurdles on this front. We are actively working on these issues right now.
On to item 2: Though there are many things we can do to help third-party developers, this is not under our control. We cannot guarantee that plugin X for Windows will be available on Mac. This is up to the third-party developer. What you can do is urge the authors of plugins you love to port their code to Mac. Some plugins will be easy to port, some will not. We will work with each developer individually to address their issues.
Plugins have not been an afterthought. Over the course of Rhino for Mac’s development, this has been one of the main technical challenges. Rhino’s plugin ecosystem has been critical to the success of the software. We are excited to be releasing Rhino for Mac soon…and we will be even more excited when third-party developers start releasing their plugins.
When will plugins be available in Rhino for Mac? Could be as soon as 5.1…but it depends (see 2 above). It depends on when your favorite plugins developer ports their work to Rhino for Mac.