AAAAA SSSSS TTTTTTT RRRRRR OOOOO L OOOOO GGGGG A A S S T R R O O L O O G G A A S T R R O O L O O G AAAAAAA SSSSS T RRRRRR O O L O O G GGGG A A S T R R O O L O O G G A A S S T R R O O L O O G G A A SSSSS T R R OOOOO LLLLLLL OOOOO GGGGG README for Astrolog version 7.50 (September 2022), compiled for MacOS ===================================================================== This readme.txt explains how to run astrolog in the MacOS ecosystem using pre-compiled executable binaries. It also offers a step by step guide for compiling your own executable binary from the included source code, if you don't want to wait for the new binaries to become available when the next version of astrolog drops, or if you're interested in programming or working with source code on a mac. BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION. IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. ROADMAP ======= OVERVIEW What it is, what it isn't, and what it needs. FIRST RUN About the unidentified developer warning. RUNNING ASTROLOG "astrolog" is a standalone command line executable. RUNNING ASTROLOGX11 "astrologx11" is a dependent command line executable providing limited display interactivity through an "X Windows System" (a.k.a. X11) software port. INSTALLING X11/XQUARTZ ...to satisfy the astrologx11 library dependency. COMPILING FROM SOURCE Make your own astrolog executable from source code. SIGNING THE EXECUTABLE ...if your compiled executable won't run, or if you want to get rid of the MacOS error: -67062 message that may show up in the Consols.app. OVERVIEW ======== How is this different from the Windows version of Astrolog? ----------------------------------------------------------- Congratulations on finding this pre-compiled distribution of Astrolog for Macintosh. The main difference from the Windows version is that it does not offer a Graphical User Interface, and so you will not find a mouse-driven menu system or dialog interface. However, it offers just about everything else. You can even draw temporary squiggles/annotations with your mouse on a chart displayed in X11. I need to become familiar with the macOS command line terminal to run this? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Macintosh versions of Astrolog (called astrolog and astrologx11) have command line interfaces, so they're designed to always be run from a terminal program such as Terminal.app. You have to specify command switches for the settings you want (even graphics settings) and the standard scenario is that a separate graphics window only pop up if you specify the right graphics switches from the terminal (i.e. "-X"). I can't just double click an executable from the Finder? -------------------------------------------------------- Neither astrolog nor astrologx11 are designed to ever be opened by double clicking. If you double click the executable, depending on how your system is configured, macOS may spawn a Terminal.app window, run the program in that window, and immediately terminate in the blink of an eye. Or it may simply allow you to interact with the program as it would if you were to enter the program name from the command line yourself. Your mileage may vary because many configuration options are available to you on a modern mac. It's possible to configure a shortcut to, for example, start Astrolog as a background process showing an animated graphics window (and close its launching window). FIRST RUN ========= Running for the first time -------------------------- Open Terminal.app, change directories to where you've extracted the distribution, and enter astrolog or astrologx11 from the command line. Hold that thought... What's all this about an "unidentified developer"? -------------------------------------------------- Compiled on macOS 10.14, astrolog and astrologx11 are binary executables that have been signed with an anonymous, self-signed code signing certificate. For this reason you can expect to see a popup window when trying to run them the first time: i.e. "astrolog can't be opened because it is from an unidentified developer." When this happens, you can go into System Preferences -> Security & Privacy and look for: "astrolog" was blocked from opening because it is not from an identified developer. Click "Open Anyway", and click "Open" again on the following dialog: "astrolog" can't be opened because the identity of the developer cannot be confirmed. Opening astrolog will always allow it to run on this Mac. This only needs to be done once per astrolog executable. If any of this bothers or worries you, consider using Apple's free developer tools to compile your own executable from the Astrolog source code. It's really fun if you're into that sort of thing; Read the primer below to get started. RUNNING ASTROLOG ================ The most common way to run an astrolog executable is to open Terminal.app, change directories to where you've extracted the distribution, and enter "astrolog" or "astrologx11" from the command line. You may also configure a Terminal.app profile to do this for you, and more. For more information about setting the PATH variable in macOS, and for configuring Terminal.app profiles, search the internet. Consult the official Astrolog documentation for further configuration and usage guidelines for Astrolog itself. The X11 version, "astrologx11", is identical to the non-X11 version, "astrolog", in that both binaries can both produce the same text mode charts in the Terminal and can both generate bitmap graphics files on your file system. The main differences are: 1) "astrologx11" also has the option to spawn a separate graphics window instead of only being able to save graphics charts to file, which must then be viewed in another program (mentioned below). 2) The X11 graphics window spawned by "astrologx11" accepts key presses and mouse input to perform functions, change settings, and modify or completely change its graphical display content. The Terminal window remains open to display text based information such as current chart position data, or a list of keyboard and mouse options (shown when typing ?). What do the two executables have in common? ------------------------------------------- Both astrolog executables ("astrolog" and "astrologx11") provide text output (even in color if configured to do so), and can generate graphics output files (like Windows style bitmap files, for example: astrolog -n -Xbw -Xo chart.bmp), but the non-X11 version ("astrolog") is not designed to automatically open a popup window displaying chart graphics. However, if you generated a chart.bmp file, mentioned above, you can still open it from the command line using the built in macOS command, i.e. "open chart.bmp". What the X11 support offers --------------------------- So, the X11 version of astrolog ("astrologx11") is not required to output graphics files. But it is required if you want to change how a graphic chart appears in an X11 window, using key press options. For instance, you can change from a normal 2D chart to a 3D chart sphere by typing X, or to a world map by typing W. Type ? to see the full list of graphics screen key press options. The help will be displayed in your Terminal window while the graphic chart is displayed in a separate X11 window. Note: The X11 window needs to have the focus for Astrolog to properly interpret key presses; If you press a key while your Terminal has focus, the character will just show up uselessly in the terminal window, and when you terminate the program, your shell will try to process what you typed: Note that this is a feature of Unix shells and their buffered input, not Astrolog, and could lead to surprising or unexpected output like "command not found". ASTROLOGX11 DEPENDENCY: X11/XQUARTZ =================================== To see popup graphics windows using astrologx11, a compatible X11 library is required, such the XQuartz project. As of the time of this writing, you can get the latest version from https://www.xquartz.org/. XQuartz 2.8.2 has been tested to work with astrologx11 v7.50 in macOS 10.14. After installation, run the XQuartz application. Once it is running, you can run astrologx11 with an -X switch (i.e. astrologx11 -X), and an X11 window will spawn automatically while your Terminal remains open, and the X11 window will have the focus. You can press Escape to quit the program, or type ? to get a list of interactive commands. If you give focus back to the Terminal, you can control-C to force quit. If you press Enter within within the X11 window, it will cause the Terminal window to show a prompt for Astrolog command switches, and you'll need to switch focus to supply the input and switch focus back to the X11 window to continue interacting with it. COMPILING FROM SOURCE ===================== Learn to compile astrolog from the source code "Command Line Tools" -------------------- To compile an astrolog executable from the source code, your operating system needs the familiar unix compiler toolkit, which includes Make, GCC, LLVM, and other developer components. These tools don't come with macOS by default, but are available as a free download from Apple. They also become installed after installing Xcode, but take note that you should not install Xcode unless you're developing applications for the mac, because it's huge (requiring over 46 gigabytes in early 2022, even though the App Store says it requires 12.7 gigabytes to download), and contains way more than you need to compile astrolog. By contrast, Command Line Tools is a cool 700 megabytes. Installing "Command Line Tools" ------------------------------- The simplest way to install Command Line Tools is to open Terminal.app and type gcc. If Command Line Tools is installed already, the gcc command will tell you "clang: error: no input files", and that's good news, you don't have to install it, because it's already there. Otherwise, you will see a dialog box pop up, saying "The gcc command requires the command line developer tools. Would you like to install the tools now?", and you can click the "Install" button. Again, be careful not to click the "Get Xcode" button unless you really want to install that behemoth. After clicking the "Install" button, you will be shown the Command Line Tools License Agreement, for which you can click the "Agree" button to continue. Then, the software will be downloaded and installed. Finally, you will see a dialog stating "The software was installed" with a "Done" button that you can click. Now verify your installation by typing the following command at your terminal prompt. xcode-select -p You should see the path that Command Line Tools was installed. You can also see what version of gcc was just installed by running the following command. gcc --version Nice! You're all set to compile the Astrolog source code in the next section. If for some reason this installation method doesn't work for your version of macOS, you can also try the following command at the prompt, it works the same way as the above method. xcode-select --install You should see a dialog box saying "The xcode-select command requires the command line developer tools. Would you like to install the tools now?", and click the "Install" button as mentioned above. If all else fails, you can sign into the Apple developer web site with your Apple ID and download the Command Line Tools for Xcode from there. Older versions exist for older versions of macOS. Are there any bugs to patch before compiling is successful? ----------------------------------------------------------- Your compilation may stop with errors, and if this happens, first you should check the page https://www.astrolog.org/astrolog/astnext.htm to see if there are any known issues. Configure the codebase to run on your mac ----------------------------------------- To configure the codebase, you'll need to edit one or more files in the source directory. Start by editing the header file called astrolog.h, in the source directory. You can use the vi editor or nano, for example: nano astrolog.h Next you'll comment or uncomment a few lines of code to tell the compiler that you're running on a mac, you're not running on a pc, and you're also not running in Microsoft Windows. 1) Find the line beginning with "#define PC" and comment it out by prepending two slashes like this: "//#define PC". 2) Find the line beginning with "#define WIN" and comment it out the same way, like this: "//#define WIN". 3) If you're compiling for the X11 environment, find the line begining with "//#define X11", and uncomment it by removing the leading double slashes, so it looks like this: "#define X11". Compiling Astrolog ------------------ This is the easiest step. The following commands will compile the source code into object files and link those object files together with the required library or libraries to produce your very own binary executable file. For compilation without X11 support, use the following command string and wait a few seconds for it to complete: gcc -c -O -Wno-write-strings -Wno-parentheses -Wno-unsequenced -Wno-constant-conversion -Wno-format *.cpp; gcc -o astrolog *.o -lm For compilation with X11 support, use the following command string and wait a few seconds for it to complete: gcc -I /usr/X11/include -c -O -Wno-write-strings -Wno-parentheses -Wno-unsequenced -Wno-constant-conversion -Wno-format *.cpp; gcc -o astrolog *.o -lm -lX11 -L/usr/X11/lib If everything went well, you'll have a new executable file in the current directory called "astrolog". A celebration is in order! SIGNING THE EXECUTABLE ====================== Should I sign the astrolog executable with a digital signature? --------------------------------------------------------------- In macOS 10.14 you can run the program as is with no visible issues, but in the Console.app, each time you run astrolog, a macOS process called taskgated will report "MacOS error: -67062", meaning the executable is not signed at all. This is just a security policy notification that doesn't affect runtime of astrolog at all. However, if you so desire, one way of suppressing the error is to sign the executable. In macOS 10.15 and above, Apple has tightened the security policy. This may not be an issue when running without X11 support, but it will certainly be an issue when running with X11 support. This is because Gatekeeper will enforce a security policy against improperly signed executables by throwing an error in your terminal session instead of running the program. In this case, you can satisfy the security policy by signing the executable and granting it a software entitlement to access the 3rd party X11 library, which is signed by an Apple Developer ID for XQuartz. Preparing a certificate and signing your compiled executable ============================================================ This is way easier than it sounds, just follow the steps. __________________________________________________ 1) Generate a self signed digital signing certificate. a) In the Keychain Access app on your Mac, choose Keychain Access > Certificate Assistant > Create a Certificate. b) Enter a Name for the certificate, i.e. "My Code Signing Certificate". c) Leave the Identity Type set to its default, "Self Signed Root". d) Set the Certificate Type to "Code Signing". e) Click the Create button. f) Click the Continue button. g) Review and click the Done button. _____________________________________________________________ 2) If running with X11 support, create a text file with the name "library-validation.xml", and the following content: com.apple.security.cs.disable-library-validation ______________________________________________________________________ 3) If running without X11 support, sign the executable with the following command, using the name of your new certificate after the -s switch: codesign -f -o runtime --timestamp -s "My Code Signing Certificate" ./astrolog ___________________________________________________________________ 4) If running with X11 support, sign the executable with the following command, using the name of your new certificate after the -s switch, and the name of your entitlement file after the --entitlements switch: codesign -f -o runtime --timestamp -s "My Code Signing Certificate" ./astrolog --entitlements library-validation.xml __________________________________________________________________ 5) You can verify the executable is signed with the following command: codesign -dv -r- ./astrolog ______________________________________________________________ 6) Optional: If running with X11 support, you can also verify the attached entitlement content: codesign -dv --entitlements :- ./astrolog ________________________________________ *) That's it! Enjoy using Astrolog in macOS! This readme was authored by Eddie Easterly