November 30th, 2017: alphaMELTS v1.8 and other additions to the MAGMA site

[Paula]

Version 1.8 of alphaMELTS was posted in November (originally November 15th, but the virtual machines were updated slightly on the 30th).

Version 1.8 fixes several minor bugs. It tweaks the output slightly, particularly for fO2, and offers a new option to buffer to an absolute fO2 value in log units. Accumulated melt compositions, calculated in "cubicquad2", can be now interpolated in F or Phi. The "Supplemental Calculator" type function (i.e. writing a "Thermodynamic output file" before equilibration) has been expanded and can now handle fO2 calculations. For more details about this and previous releases, please see the *README* link on the alphaMELTS download site.

Version 1.8 is the first version of to specifically target Windows 10's Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) and includes a package to easily enable tab-completion in alphaMELTS. It is possible to run the rhyolite-MELTS graphical user interface (GUI) this way too. VM (virtual machine) alphaMELTS is still based on Lubuntu 14.04 LTS (32-bit and 64-bit versions), but now include Jon Snow's Meltsout program pre-installed and a double-clickable version of the rhyolite-MELTS GUI; usually, double-clicking the GUI is not recommended.

In other news, the upgrade to the new server has been completed so that all binary movies now work, and no longer require installation of Flash. (The only exception is the spinel volume calculator, which is still being migrated to the newer PhP version.) The MAGMA and alphaMELTS links pages have been thoroughly updated, and tools for processing output from the rhyolite-MELTS GUI  newly posted. Several new forum posts should cover most of the frequently asked questions that we receive via email or Facebook.

Cheers,
Paula