Notes for Mac users (including Catalina / Big Sur security settings)

[Paula]

On macOS Catalina, the first time you try to run alphaMELTS 2 it may fail due to new security settings. Go to System Preferences -> Security & Privacy->General tab and select "Allow anyway", and then try again.

In macOS Catalina the default shell is zsh, but if you upgraded from Mojave then you may still have bash. One way to check is to open the Terminal program and type 'echo $0' (that is 'zero', not uppercase 'o') at the command line. If it says '-zsh' then you will need to type 'bash -l' and press enter (that is lowercase 'L', not 'one') each time you open Terminal, before starting the run_alphamelts.command script. See the documentation for more details.

NOTE: As of version alphaMELTS 2.1 you do not need to type 'bash -l', in fact it may not work if you do not. run-alphamelts.command will now run fine in bash or zsh and can also be double-clicked.

[Paula]

In alphaMELTS 1.X if you double-clicked a link to run_alphamelts.command (usually in ~/bin where ~ is your home space), then it would open in your home space and this could make it difficult to locate the input and output files (see this related post for the rhyolite-MELTS GUI).

In alphaMELTS 2 the "link" that install2.command creates (usually in ~/bin or ~/Documents/bin where ~ is your home space) is actually a script that can be double clicked and the output will go to the folder where you double-clicked run-alphamelts.command. Much easier!

However, there are a couple of (rare) cases where you may need to adjust a system setting to get this to work. If you type "run-alphamelts.command" at the Terminal command line and see something like:

46:83: execution error: Finder got an error: osascript is not allowed assistive access. (-25211)

... Or if you double-click run-alphamelts.command and either see an error like the one above, or have a Terminal window open and close before you can do anything then to allow Terminal assistive access:

• go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility
• Click the lock to make changes (if needed)
• Select + (if needed) to add the Terminal program or click the checkbox if it is already in the list.