xdatplot installation

How to install xdatplot

On SunOS4.1.3, sun4

  1. Set Load to local disk in the mosaic options menu. (This assumes you're using NCSA mosaic. If you're using another Web reader, you're on your own.)
  2. Get this file and call it xdatplot.gz.
  3. Get this file and call it asc2bin.gz.
  4. Get this file and call it print_big.gz.
  5. Execute the command gunzip xdatplot.gz asc2bin.gz print_big.gz to uncompress the programs. (Note: gunzip is the GNU uncompression program. If you don't have gunzip, here is a binary. You can get source code for gzip and gunzip from GNU.)
  6. Execute the command install xdatplot asc2bin print_big /usr/local/bin to mark the programs executable and place them in your bin directory. (You can substitute in place of /usr/local/bin any directory in your $PATH. If you don't have root permission, you can place these programs wherever you keep your own programs.)

Building from source

If your platform is not SunOS4.1.3 sun4, you need to build xdatplot from source. If you successfully build xdatplot on some other platform and are willing to contribute the resulting binaries, please contact me so I can put them on this server. I would also like to hear if anyone successfully runs xdatplot on Solaris 2.x in Binary Compatibility mode.

You must have the motif libraries and include files to build xdatplot. There is currently no option to build it with any free widget set. This may change in the future. Then again, it may not.

  1. Set Load to local disk in the mosaic options menu. (This assumes you're using NCSA mosaic. If you're using another Web reader, you're on your own.)
  2. Get this file and call it xdatplot-0.2.tar.gz.
  3. Execute the command gunzip -c xdatplot-0.2.tar.gz | tar xvf - to uncompress the programs. (Note: gunzip is the GNU uncompression program. You can get source code for gzip and gunzip from GNU.)
  4. Execute the following commands:
        cd xdatplot-0.2
        ./configure
        xmkmf -a
        make
        make install install.ad
    
That should do it. A few notes:

  1. Only the last step (make install install.ad) needs to be executed as root. If you don't have root permission, just copy xdatplot, asc2bin, and print_big to some convenient directory in your $PATH.
  2. By default, xdatplot is built with CDEBUGFLAGS=-g; i.e., it is built for debugging, not for performance. To change this, use make CDEBUGFLAGS=-O2 instead of make.
  3. It is not absolutely necessary to install the application defaults (make install.ad). xdatplot has fallback resources, and will work properly without. But you need it if you're going to set system defaults, such as helpURL. Speaking of which...
  4. The help tree is in the directory xdatplot-0.2/help. If you wish to install local help (and there's every reason to do it), point the XDatplot*helpURL resource at "file://localhost/path/xdatplot-0.2/help/index.html".

Additional things you might want to install

The new xdatplot help system is absolutely and utterly dependent on NCSA mosaic. If you don't have NCSA mosaic (how are you reading this document?), get it from ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu. xdatplot expects to find mosaic under the name "mosaic" in the current $PATH. This can be changed with the helpViewer resource.

By default (or default default), xdatplot fetches help from Texas over the Internet. The reason is to make installation easy for people who don't want a lot of trouble and never use help anyway. However, this makes it slow, especially if you're a long looong way from Texas. And of course, if you don't have an Internet connection, it won't work at all. So if you think you're going to be using xdatplot for any length of time, you should probably fetch the help tree and install it locally. Set the Load to Local Disk option in mosaic, save this file as xdatplot_help.tar.gz, say "gunzip -c xdatplot_help.tar.gz | tar xvf -", which will create a directory called help, then point the XDatplot*helpURL resource at "file://localhost/path/xdatplot-0.2/help/index.html".

There are a few sample data files you can use to find out if xdatplot is more or less working.

xdatplot will work without a system application defaults file. But if you're a system manager type and want to set defaults for all your users, you need to get the app-default file XDatplot.ad and edit it. Yes it's huge and horrible, but don't worry about it. Most of the stuff you're interested in changing is near the top. The one thing you must not do is create a tiny little XDatplot file in the system app-defaults directory specifying only the 2 resources you want to change. This will cause xdatplot not to use its fallback resources, and it will break badly.

Leon Avery (leon@eatworms.swmed.edu)