Release Notes for Ifeffit 1.2.8

Windows

For Windows, there is a new installer, but no update. The new installer has the latest versions of the programs and also has dramatic changes to how the programs are organized and run. The batch files and the old automatic updater are gone, replaced by a single program 'runner' that checks for updates and runs all of the applications. There is also a completely new layout of C:\Program Files\Ifeffit. Bruce and I have been working on this for a while, and we believe it will be a lot easier for us to maintain. We expect that the changes will be mostly invisible to users, except when you install it. A result of the new layout is that

  you must uninstall any previous version of
  Ifeffit before installing the new version.  

Really, we're not kidding. There is a potential problem with this, as you may have your own projects under C:\Program Files\Ifeffit, say in \horae\ or in \examples\. You probably don't want to delete these!!!

We recommend that you either move C:\Program Files\Ifeffit\horae and any other folders you may have file in to somewhere safe *before* you remove Ifeffit, or simply rename C:\Program Files\Ifeffit to Ifeffit_OLD and leave it there for a few weeks. And of course, we recommend that you save your data somewhere outside of C:\Program Files and make regular backups ("Gee, thanks, Mom!").

Then use the Control Panel 'add/remove programs' to remove Ifeffit. This will try to delete everything that originally got installed (and so *should* leave your data, but I wouldn't bet on it!!), including the shortcuts in the Start Menu. Once the C:\Program Files\Ifeffit folder is gone or cleaned out, you can then safely install the new Windows installer.

The older Windows version (1.2.7) will see one more update, which will simply remind you to install the new version of the full installer. All further updates will be available only to the new version.

New Windows Layout

In the previous Windows installation, there were more than 100 files and folders in C:\Program Files\Ifeffit. There are now 5 files and 9 folders. The folders are:

• bin/ binaries to be run
• build/ setup and build files (including inno setup files)
• cldata/ Cromer-Libermann data
• config/ configuration files
• doc/ Documentation
• examples/ Examples
• fefftab/ Tabulated Feff Data
• horae/ Folder for horae projects (user space)
• share/ Data files for athena, artemis, etc.

How the Ifeffit apps are run

The file bin/runner.exe is the main 'wrapper program'. This checks for recent updates to the Ifeffit programs and sets any environmental variables needed for the other programs.

Using the new updater with a firewall/proxy

If you're behind a firewall that needs an http proxy to get web access, you'll need to put this configuration in config/updater.ini so that the bin/runner.exe can look for updates. Edit the config/updater.ini file. It should look like this:

[updater]
next_checktime = tomorrow
update_site = http://cars9.uchicago.edu/ifeffit/updates/
timestamp = 1126885784.74
http_proxy = 
timeout_connect = 60.0
timeout_download = 2400.0

You'll need to set the http_proxy line to your http proxy (check the settings of your webbrowser).

how to make an update

Mac OS X

For Mac OS X (10.3), the binary installer includes the codes from horae-055. The previous attempt to support Aquaterm is now dropped -- plotting is done with the X Windows plotting terminal. Since Athena/Artemis require X, and since X11 now comes from Apple, the Aquaterm support was more trouble than it was worth.

Unix

For Linux/Unix users using the source kit, the 'where is termcap?' problems should be gone. In addition, building on 64-bit linux machines should be much easier. PGPLOT_install now has a '--with-64bit' option which is needed for 64bit linux. Ifeffit's normal './configure' should then work fine. It now warns if the termcap library cannot be found.