macOS 10.15 Catalina for ENVI 5.5.3 and IDL 8.7.3 Command Line Users

The purpose of this help article is for users who normally work within the shell, terminal, or command line when using IDL or ENVI on macOS. (NOTE: If users do not use the IDL Workbench (idlde), it is not necessary to install legacy Java 6.) 

NOTE: Earlier versions of IDL and ENVI are not supported on macOS Catalina. To use IDL or ENVI on this platform, users should upgrade to IDL 8.7.3 or ENVI 5.5.3. 

For other installation scenarios involving Catalina, please visit our parent link here.

 

I. Install XQuartz 2.7.11:

When Catalina has been upgraded, the Desktop will include a folder containing “Relocated Items.” If you had XQuartz previously installed before upgrading to Catalina, it may have been quarantined within the "Relocated Items" folder.

In our testing, we did not find the relocation of these files to cause issues, however, if you do experience issues with your X11 viewer, you may need to reinstall XQuartz. Follow these steps if this is the case.

 

II. Install IDL 8.7.3 or ENVI 5.5.3: 

IDL 8.7.3 and ENVI 5.5.3 now include 64-bit AppleScripts to work on the supported platform macOS 10.15 Catalina. The basic steps for installing IDL or ENVI can be found here.  Follow the steps in this help article, and if you run into issues at time of installation, proceed to step III below.

 

III. Licensing ENVI/IDL:
Once the above steps have been complete, you should now be able to double-click on the LicenseAdministrator Application within the /Applications/harris directory. You will receive a popup indicating LicenseAdministrator requires access to Finder and System Events, which will look something like this:

Click OK to allow this.
 

The Harris License Administrator widget will open. Proceed to activate the software. For node-locked licensing, follow the steps detailed here. To set up your Mac as a Client accessing a server, use these instructions. Should you run into issues, contact us. If you'd prefer to activate via the command line, please follow the steps detailed in step IV below.

 

IV. Activate ENVI/IDL license from the command line:
Some macOS users strictly use IDL or ENVI via terminal. For these customers working with a node-locked license, here are the steps to undergo licensing activation at the command line. For the purpose of this article, ENVI+IDL 5.5.3 was used to showcase activation steps.

1. Open an X-term or Terminal window, and change to the directory that contains the activate utility:
       cd /Applications/harris/envi55/idl87/license_utils/bin.darwin.x86_64
2. Activate your licensing using the following command:
       ./activate -a  AAAA-BBBB-CCCC-DDDD -q 1
       where AAAA-BBBB-CCCC-DDDD is your activation code
3. If this does not work, attempt the same thing with sudo permissions:
       sudo ./activate -a  AAAA-BBBB-CCCC-DDDD -q 1

 

V. Sourcing your bash scripts:
Once XQuartz and IDL or ENVI is installed,  for users only interacting with IDL or ENVI via the terminal, go ahead and source your IDL, ENVI or ENVI+IDL setup bash scripts from the command line window - this will enable you to access IDL or ENVI from that Terminal/X-Term shell directly. Catalina has moved to using zsh as opposed to bash, but these setup scripts work fine within the zsh Terminal. Open Terminal source your setup scripts like so:

For IDL only:

source /Applications/harris/idl87/bin/idl_setup.bash

For ENVI only:
source /Applications/Harris/envi55/bin/envi_setup.bash

For ENVI + IDL:
source /Applications/harris/envi55/idl87/bin/idl_setup.bash

 

If you run into issues, please contact Technical Support or your local distributor.

 

 

Jenny Bloom - 02/17/2020