DS9

MacOSX and Windows compatibility

X11 and XQuartz

Up until MacOSX 10.8 (Mountain Lion), Apple provided their own version of a X11 server. At first, it was based on XFree86 (X11R6.6) and available with versions up to MacOSX 10.4. Later with MacOSX versions 10.5 to 10.7, the Apple's X11 server was based upon X.org (X11R7.2).

The Apple version of X11 server for MacOSX 10.5 to 10.7 contains a bug which fails if you invoke certain X11 calls on a window if its location is not at 0,0 on the screen. Hence, within DS9, if you 'Save Image' and your window is not exactly in the upper left corner, it will fail.

Starting with MacOSX 10.8, Apple no longer provides a X11 window server. The user must go to the XQuartz site and download/install directly. The current version is 2.7.3.

Command line startup in Aqua

If you start DS9 in MacOSX Aqua directly on the command line

% /Applications/SAOImage\ DS9.app/Contents/MacOS/ds9 foo.fits

you may get errors such as

The document "foo.fits" could not be opened. SAOImageDS9 cannot open files in the "Flexible Image Transport System" format.

Instead, use the MacOSX open command, which sets up the user environment in the same was as when you double-click on an icon:

% open /Applications/SAOImage\ DS9.app foo.fits

Opening files in Aqua

By default, DS9 MacOSX Aqua uses the MacOSX standard dialog box to open and save files. This can be a problem in that the native MacOSX dialog will not allow arbitrary extensions to the file name, such as foo.fits[2]. You must use the Unix like standard dialogs to be able to specify an extension. Select Edit->Preferences->General to change the default standard dialog.

Mac: Setting up environment to use external analysis programs

In Unix to use external analysis programs, such as funtools, you set a PATH environment variable. But when you double click on a MacOSX application, it does not parse any shell startup files, such as ~/.profile. In older versions of MacOSX, the environment is defined using a special environment file, .MacOSX/environment.plist. This file could be created with the MacOSX utility /Developer/Applications/PropertyListEditor.app.

However, the environment.plist file is now deprecated and creating a property list file using the launchctl command now appears to be the recommended approach.

Windows compatibility notes

Some Windows issues:

• Note that running DS9 in Windows XP compatibility mode breaks 'Save Image' (only a small strip of the image is saved to the output jpg or png, etc.). To fix this, un-check the compatibility option in the properties dialog.

• By default, the windows port of DS9 uses the Windows standard dialog box to open and save files. This can be a problem in that the native Windows dialog will not allow extensions to the file name, such as foo.fits[2]. You must use the Unix like standard dialogs to be able to specify an extension. Select Edit->Preferences->General:Dialogbox to change the default standard dialog.

• In certain configurations, when you create an auxiliary window in DS9, such as a Pixel Table, or Analysis Plot, it will retreat behind the main DS9 window. Then, when you bring the auxiliary window to the front and move the mouse out of it, it automatically goes behind the main DS9 window again.

  To fix things so that the auxiliary window stays on top of the DS9 window, do the following:

  Go to the icon task bar at the bottom of the screen. Bring the auxiliary window to the front by clicking on its icon in the icon task bar. While the mouse still is on the aux window icon, press the mouse button, and keeping it pressed, move the mouse off the task bar. Release the mouse while off the task bar. The auxiliary window will now stay on top of the main DS9 window.