Preparing a User Account on macOS (14+) Workstations

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

# source the .profile 
.  $HOME/.profile  

2. Modify the environment variable PATH in your $HOME/.profile file. Insert $HOME/mcidas/bin and /home/mcidas/bin, in that order, at the beginning of your PATH by adding the set of lines below.

# recommended PATH setting for McIDAS-X:  
export PATH=$HOME/mcidas/bin:/home/mcidas/bin:$PATH

Note: The changes above will take effect the next time you open a shell logged into the user account.

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.