Downloading DATAPLOT for Mac OSX

Alan Heckert Statistical Engineering Division Room 331, Building 820 National Institute Of Standards and Technology Gaithersburg, Md. 20899-8980 (301) 975-2899 or FTS 879-2899 alan.heckert@nist.gov

Jim Filliben Statistical Engineering Division Room 353, Building 820 National Institute Of Standards and Technology Gaithersburg, Md. 20899-8980 (301) 975-2855 or FTS 879-2855 james.filliben@nist.gov

The current Dataplot Mac OSX implementation is a Unix/X11 port of Dataplot built using the g77 compiler under Mac OSX 10.3. Running the graphical user interface (GUI) requires the Tcl/Tk software.

There have been several major releases of Mac OSX:

1. Mac OSX 10.1
2. Mac OSX 10.2
3. Mac OSX 10.3 (Panther)
4. Mac OSX 10.4 (Tiger)

The current installation should run under 10.3 or 10.4. We are no longer supporting 10.1 or 10.2. Nor do we support any versions for the "Classic Mac" environment.

/Applications/Installers/Developer Tools/Packages

We are investigating the possibility of using the Aquaterm software to provide a version of Dataplot that does not require X11 for the command line version. However, this is not available in the current release.

In addition, you need to know your administrator password since Dataplot needs to install files in the "/usr/local" directories.

You can download a single file that contains the complete Dataplot installation.

Note: I have changed the installation scheme for the 04/2006 MacOSX version. Previous versions were designed to be installed in your own user directories. However, this caused issues with shared libraries not being where they were expected. Therefore I have modified the installation to put the Dataplot files in the "/usr/local" directories.

1. The Dataplot executable file. This file is installed in the "/usr/local/bin" directory. The same executable is used for both the command line and graphical interface (GUI) versions. There are 2 scripts files (dataplot and xdataplot) installed in "/usr/local/bin" that initiate the command line version and the GUI versions, respectively.

2. The Dataplot auxillary files. This includes the online help files, sample data files, the script and menu files for the GUIs, and other files used by Dataplot. These files are installed in the "/usr/local/lib/dataplot" directory.

3. Dataplot uses the GD library to generate JPEG, PNG, and GIF format files. The GD library in turn uses the PNG library, the ZLIB compression library, the JPEG library, and the Freetype library. Dataplot will install the versions of the libraries used by Datplot in the "/usr/local/lib" directory.

   The current version of the MacOSX Dataplot executable uses version 2.0.33 of GD, version 1.2.8 of PNG, version 1.2.3 of ZLIB, and version 2.10 of Freetype.

4. The runtime libraries needed by the g77 compiler. These files will be installed in "/usr/local/lib".

5. The Dataplot GUI is implemented using the Tcl/Tk scripting language.

   For the Mac OSX version of Dataplot, I have built version 8.4.9 of Tcl/Tk from the generic Unix source. Dataplot will install a number of Tcl/Tk files in "/usr/local/bin" and "/usr/local/lib".

   Note that there is a Mac OSX "native mode" version of Tcl/Tk that can be downloaded from the Active States web site. I have done some initial testing of Dataplot with this version of Tcl/Tk. Although it basically works, I need to some slight tweaking of the Dataplot Tcl/Tk scripts in order to properly use this version. So for this 04/2006 version of Dataplot, I recommend that you stay with the version built from the Unix source.

ftp ftp.nist.gov
user>anonymous
password> your e-mail
>cd /pub/dataplot/mac
>binary
>get dataplot.macosx.tar.gz dataplot.macosx.tar.gz
>quit

Alternatively, you can initiate this download directly (last updated 04/25/2006).

sudo mv dataplot.macosx.tar.gz /usr/local
cd /local/lib

The "sudo" command allows you to execute commands that require "super user" permission. Since you are updating files in "/usr/local", you will need this super user authority. When you enter a "sudo" command, you will be prompted for your administrator password.

If for some reason, you need to install Dataplot someplace else, move to that directory instead of "/usr/local". We will say a bit more about this below. If you are reasonably fluent in Unix, then the needed changes are straightforward. If you are not, then we strongly recommend that you stick with the default "/usr/local" location.

sudo gunzip dataplot.macosx.tar.gz
sudo tar -xvf dataplot.macosx.tar

If "/usr/local/bin" is not in your default path (typically it is for panther, but not for tiger), then you need to modify your shell startup script. For example, if you use the c-shell, then you might need to add a line like the following to your .cshrc file:

set path=(/usr/local/bin $path)

If you use the Bourne shell, then you might need to add a line like the following to your .bash_profile file:

PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/bin export path

However, if you installed Dataplot in another directory, then you may need to do the following:

• Even if you prefer to install Dataplot in another directory, you may want to install some of the auxillary libraries to "/usr/local/lib". Specifically, the GD (and related) libraries and the g77 runtime libraries may cause problems if they are not installed in "/usr/local/lib". I also recommend installing Tcl/Tk in "/usr/local/bin" and "/usr/local/lib".

• In the "bin" directory, you need to edit the "dataplot" and "xdataplot" scripts. These set a few environment variables. You need to modify these to match the appropriate location on your system.

• If the Tcl/Tk program "wish" was not installed in "/usr/local/bin", you need to modify the file "lib/dataplot/frscript/xdp". Specifically, the first line of this file needs to point to the correct location for the "wish" program.

• Edit the file "lib/frscript/xdpConfig". The lines starting with
  dataplot unix
  library unix
  

  need to be modified to reflect the correct path for your system.

• Open an X11 terminal window.

• Initiate Dataplot from this window and run the sample "minitest.dp" macro:

  dataplot
  device 1 x11
  call minitest.dp
  quit
  

To test the GUI version, o

• Open an X11 terminal window.

• Enter the command

  xdataplot

1. A top level window containing the menus (e.g., Files/Data, Plot).
2. The upper left window is where Dataplot alphanumeric output is generated.
3. The upper right window ("Graph") is where Dataplot graphs are generated.
4. The lower left window stores the Dataplot commands that have been issued.
5. The lower right window is a data spreadsheet.
6. The window labeled "Command Line" allows you to enter Dataplot commands directly.

There may be times when it is useful to download components of the installation rather than the full installation. The most common case is to download an updated Dataplot executable without performing a complete re-install.

1. The current .dataplot.macosx.2006-04.gz This is the current Dataplot executable for the Mac OSX (10.3 or 10.4) operating system. This file should be installed in the "/usr/local/bin" directory. Then do the following:
   sudo gunzip .dataplot.macosx.2006-04.gz
   
   Check the "/usr/local/bin/dataplot" script to ensure that the location for the Dataplot executable (the last line of the file) matches where you have actually installed it.

2. Dataplot auxillary files - These are auxillary files (e.g., on-line help files) used by Dataplot.

   The file should be downloaded to the "/usr/local/lib" directory. Then do the following:

   gunzip dplib.tar.Z tar -xvf dplib.tar

   Note that this is the generic Unix version of these files. The files "/usr/local/lib/dataplot/frscript/xdp", "/usr/local/lib/dataplot/frscript/xdpConfig", and "/usr/local/bin/xdataplot" need to be checked that the paths given match the location on your local system.

3. Dataplot source and build files - These files contain the Dataplot source code. In addition, script files are available for building Dataplot on various platforms.

   Since a pre-built executable is available for Mac OSX, you should typically not need to build it yourself.

I simply do not have the time or expertise to diagnose these types of problems. I can check to see if our ftp server is up, but not much beyond that.

If you are unable to download via the web, you can do the following:

1. You can try using anonymous ftp directly.

   ftp  ftp.nist.gov
   user name> anonymous
   password>  your e-mail address
   >cd /pub/dataplot/mac
   >dir
                

   At this point, the dir command will list several sub-directories (pc, unix, etc.). You can search these sub-directories for the needed files. Be sure to enter a "binary" command before downloading any "exe", "tar.gz" or "tar.Z" files.

   I only recommend this if you already reasonably familiar with using anonymous ftp.

2. Alternatively, I can send the Dataplot installation on a CD-R. This is easier for me than trying to diagnose ftp/browser/firewall problems. There is no charge, just send a request to Alan Heckert. Be sure to include your mail address (not e-mail) and the desired platform.

If you are still running 10.1 or 10.2, you will need to build Dataplot from the source code.

1. We are developing an Aqua device driver using the Aquaterm software. Although it wasn't quite ready for the 04/25/2006 release, I anticipate it being available in the near futute.

2. There is a "native mode" release of Tcl/Tk for MacOSX. Although the Dataplot GUI basically works with this native mode Tcl/Tk, we need to tweak the Dataplot Tcl/Tk scripts before recommending the Dataplot GUI use this version of Tcl/Tk.

Date created: 6/5/2001
Last updated: 4/26/2006
Please email comments on this WWW page to sedwww@cam.nist.gov.