Preparing a User Account
on Unix Workstations with Linux or legacy macOS (13)

1. Log on to your user account. Update (create if necessary) your $HOME/.bash_profile (for bash) or $HOME/.zprofile (for zsh) file to include the line ". $HOME/.profile" so that .profile is sourced and thus the PATH and McIDAS environment variables that are defined in .profile and .mcenv are set each time you log on to the account.

2. Modify the environment variable PATH in your $HOME/.profile file.

• Insert $HOME/mcidas/bin, the directory with your site's locally developed code (the suggested directory is ~mclocal/mcidas/bin), and ~mcidas/bin, in that order, at the beginning of your PATH.


• You may also need to modify your PATH if it does not contain all of the required directories or have them in the correct order. If you will be writing and compiling your own McIDAS software, update your PATH with the modifications listed in step 3 of Preparing the mcidas Account.

3. Add the following environment variable definitions to your $HOME/.profile file to improve the behavior of cutting and pasting within the mctext window.

• export MCPASTE=ONE
• export MCPASTEF=NOFREE
• export MALLOC_CHECK_=0

4. Log off and log on again for the changes to take effect.

1. Bring up the Keyboard Shortcuts window by clicking the following in order: Main Menu (in lower-left corner), Preferences, Keyboard Shortcuts.

2. Highlight each shortcut associated with a key combination you want to use in McIDAS-X (e.g., <ALT>F2) and press the Backspace key to change it to Disabled. This allows McIDAS-X to use the key combination for strings and other applications.

1. Start XQuartz by double-clicking the XQuartz icon in the Applications>Utilities folder. If XQuartz is already running, click the XQuartz icon in the dock to make the application active.

2. Click the XQuartz menu at the top of the display, then click Preferences to bring up the X11 Preferences window.

3. Click the Input tab, then uncheck the checkbox labeled Enable key equivalents under X11.

Steps 1-3 allow the open-apple keys (on each side of the spacebar) to function as the Alt keys in McIDAS-X.

4. Start a Terminal by double-clicking the Terminal icon in the Applications>Utilities folder. If a Terminal is already running, click the Terminal icon in the dock to make the application active. Then use the xmodmap utility to configure a key to function as the Insert key during McIDAS-X command entry. Choose the appropriate command below, depending on whether you have a fullsize (desktop) keyboard or a laptop.

On a fullsize keyboard, run the command below to configure the help key to function as Insert. The spaces before and after the equal sign (=) are required.

On a laptop, run the command below to configure the option (alt) key to function as Insert. The spaces before and after the equal sign (=) are required.