Known Issues macOS

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There are a few known issues with IDL widgets and macOS/OSX, running the latest XQuartz (2.7.11), including:

Segmentation fault while running code that involves widgets (SPEDAS GUI, EVA, etc.)

Warning: Fatal Error:

_XmGetDefaultDisplay cannot be used prior to VendorS.Initialize, returns NULL

Segmentation fault: 11

or you may see the error:

Error: attempt to add non-widget child "dsm" to parent "idl" which supports only widgets

or IDL may close abruptly and without warning when running code that involves widgets.

Solution:

These issues can be fixed at the command line with the following:

1. change to the X11 library directory:

 cd /opt/X11/lib

2. backup the libXt library file found in this directory:

 sudo cp libXt.6.dylib libXt.6.dylib.bak

3. change to the “flat_namespace” directory:

 cd flat_namespace/

4. copy the copy of libXt from this directory up one directory:

 sudo cp libXt.6.dylib ../.

No annotations/legend text showing in GUI

This issue is due to corrupt IDL configuration files; to fix, delete the .idl folder in your IDL working directory

IDL freezes after compiling loadct2 with IDL 8.5.1 on macOS 10.14 + Anaconda

A conflict was found between IDL and Anaconda (http://anaconda.com) on the latest macOS. If a load routine call seems to freeze after compiling loadct2 and you're running both Anaconda and macOS 10.14, a simple fix is to remove and reinstall Anaconda.

Cannot install Java 6

IDL requires Java 6. To install it on newer Macs, you may have to follow the procedure described below:

https://www.harrisgeospatial.com/Support/Self-Help-Tools/Help-Articles/Help-Articles-Detail/ArtMID/10220/ArticleID/23780/macOS-Catalina-1015-ENVIIDL-and-Legacy-Java-6-Dependencies

IDL Workbench crashes on macOS >= 10.12.4

The IDL Workbench crashes when clicking "Clear console", or hitting the delete button, and/or copying/pasting large blocks of text in macOS 10.12.4 and later. This is a known issue with the IDL Workbench on macOS 10.12.4 and later, with no current work-arounds. This bug is related to a Java Eclipse issue (the foundation of the IDLDE):

https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=502711

Note: this bug is fixed in IDL 8.8

'Reveal End of Document' IDL Workbench error in IDL 8.8

The IDL Workbench gives an error: "'Reveal End of Document' has encountered a problem" when copy+pasting a large amount of content into the console. To fix this issue, go to:

IDL > Preferences > Run/Debug > Console

and set the option "Fixed width console" and click "Apply and Close"

Error: attempt to add non-widget child "dsm" to parent "idl"

If you get this error, run these two commands:

sudo mv /opt/X11/lib/libXt.6.dylib{,.bak}

sudo cp /opt/X11/lib{/flat_namespace,}/libXt.6.dylib

Using the MacOS executable

After unzipping the executable in any directory, open the command line (terminal), change directory to spedas/spd_gui and run this command:

sudo chmod +x spedas

Then, to open the SPEDAS GUI, run:

./spedas