[GRASS5] Mac OS X Patches and Additions

[Michael Barton]

Thanks Jeshua for your efforts for Mac.

However, we need to make sure this works well with the distribution that
Lorenzo Moretti has developed for Mac OSX. One big issue is that Lorenzo's
version of GRASS is now installed into the /Applications folder. This is the
standard location for applications under OSX rather than the Unix/Linux
standard of /usr/local/. While one can debate the merits or disadvantages of
this from a standardization perspective, it is where most Mac users look for
applications and overcomes the annoying reality that Apple chose to hide the
/usr directory from normal Mac users, while the /Applications directory is
accessible without dropping into the terminal or specifying a special path
to the Mac GUI.

Using Aqua would be desirable if it were difficult to get and xwindows
version of tcltk installed (This was the case about a year ago). However,
Lorenzo has developed nice *.dmg versions of needed GRASS libraries,
including x11 standard tcltk. If this is not moving all of GRASS to Aqua and
out of x11, I'm not sure what is gained now by patching it for a
non-standard tcltk. Perhaps Glynn or others could speak to this.

Mac preferred browser support already works for GRASS 5.7, but it would
certainly be nice to have this for 5.4 too. This may just need a bit of
tweaking to tcltkgrass for 5.4 or it might need something more complex.

Support for spaces and other non alphanumeric characters is also nice, but I
think that there is no longer a problem with this in either 5.4 or 5.7.

Finally, I'm not sure what is meant by automatically bringing the GUI to the
front. Currently, I can bring it to the front like any other application by
clicking on it with a mouse, or hide it as needed. Perhaps I misunderstand.

Perhaps Lorenzo, Kirk, or other GRASS Mac users will be able to offer
additional clarifications. I am not trying to be negative and welcome anyone
who can help make GRASS more useable on the Mac or any platform. There are
indeed places where Mac support for GRASS can be improved. But I'm not sure
that the 4 items listed here are ones that need to be fixed (preferred
browser support for 5.4 being the primary exception to this). I guess I
would be cautious about altering the source code for these items without
more information.

Michael Barton


On 11/8/04 12:16 AM, "Jeshua Lacock" <jeshua at OpenOSX.com> wrote:

> 
> Greetings,
> 
> I have attached a (small) tar file with patches and applications for
> GRASS 5.4.0 and 5.7.0 which on Mac OS X provide the following features:
> 
> * Enables compatibility with the Aqua version of TCL/TK
> * Enables native Mac OS X preferred browser support for online help
> * Support for special Mac OS X characters such as spaces with tcltkgrass
> * Brings the TCL/TK GUI automatically to the front
> 
> These patches are designed to be applied to the source code. I will
> provide patches with the 5.4.0 and 5.7.0 binaries that I am uploading
> (I have uploaded the 5.4.0 binaries, and I am going to upload 5.7.0
> when I get NVIZ working from the GUI).
> 
> The following scripts and programs included in the archive should be
> installed to /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin:
> € lsWrap: Wrapper for "ls"; support for Mac OS X special characters
> € appToFront: application to bring an app to support (source code
> available upon request)
> € wishToFront: wrapper for "appToFront"; brings Wish application to the
> foreground
> 
> If anyone has any questions, please let em know.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Jeshua Lacock __________________________
> Programmer/Owner            Phone:   877.240.1364
> http://OpenOSX.com           Fax:        415.462.6211
> -_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

______________________________
Michael Barton, Professor of Anthropology
School of Human, Evolution and Social Change
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ  85287-2402
USA

voice: 480-965-6262; fax: 480-965-7671
www: http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton