Licensed Ribbons Software Old Mac OSX Executables

Licensed Ribbons Software Old Mac OSX Executables

Last update: Oct 28, 2004.

Latest release: ribbons 3.22
This is only for the Mac OSX 10.2 (Jaguar) and higher (compiled w/10.2).
Have been told it runs fine on OSX 10.3 (Panther) also.
A version for the older X-on-X is at the bottom of this page.

Got the program running in April '03 on a nice loaner machine from Apple. I really like this machine and plan to make a new and improved Apple-style professional release. Hope you can provide some feedback. Notes...
Here's a testimonial from the first feedback on Apr.12,'03:
Dear Mike,

Ribbons 3.19 works great on 10.2.5!  Resizing the window, rotating the
molecule, etc. is much quicker.  Saved images ('WYSIWYG' image type)
appear sharper too.
Known Bugs:
Major huge bug: aspect ratio is not maintained as you resize the window!
You should get it about right, save all your defaults from the file menu (which forces the right aspect based on the 'X' dimension), then re-start the program.
There are still the same bugs (explanations/feedback far below):

Motif toggle widget weirdness
(but now they 'work', but the indicator/text may be out of sync)
The one-button mouse.
(but have added keypad emulators for Zrot, Ztrans, Zslab - see release notes)
The alt-Key shortcuts don't work.
(but you can with 3.20 simply press 'a' instead of 'Alt-a')
No on-line, html-based help.
(but can point your browser to $RIBBONS_HOME/help/manual.html or the website)

Software:

Required Libraries:

You will probably have to get the 'Motif' (openmotif) GUI widget library.
You may have to get the 'TIFF' image library.
You may also need to get the 'Tcl/Tk' scripting language.
You should install the libraries using Fink (see below).

Compiled Executable Binaries:

rib_macx2.tar.Z -- Ribbons 3.22 for Mac OSX 10.2 (Jaguar or Panther). Apr 19, 2004.

You must have the required files of the Base Distribution, plus the archive 'rib_macx2.tar.Z' above. This is just the compressed archive of the ~ribbons/bin directory for OSX. You can unpack with the base distribution's *.csh script, or just (from RIBBONS_HOME):
 zcat rib_macx2.tar.Z | tar xvf - 
 
Recipes for Unix novices
If you aren't used to this unix command line stuff, here are some recipes:

New! Very nice 'Word' Document (Courtesty of Ed Rosloniec)

A real user's experience
My attempt at an explanation
Feedback welcome.

Testing/Running on the Mac:
Open an X11 terminal window (I have a big X11 in my 'dock'). Type:
ribbons-demo -n calmod
Fails if Motif and/or Tiff libraries are missing.

To test the data preparation interface, type:
ribbons-data
This requires Tcl/Tk to be installed.
If ribbons doesn't work, get/install missing libraries from Fink - Home.
... The Fink project wants to bring the full world of Unix Open Source software to Darwin and Mac OS X. We modify Unix software so that it compiles and runs on Mac ...
Guess you Mac folk probably already know about this.
Several have had problems with the Motif libraries, so here they are compiled om my machine.
libXm.a = static version.
libXm.3.0.1.dylib = dynamic version (which may have to me linked to 'libXm.dylib' or 'libXm.3.dylib')

Previous release, ribbons 3.16 , only works for the Mac OSX running X-on-X (not Aqua) and will not work if your version of X-on-X doesn't match ours (see these notes).

Compiled Executable Binaries:

rib_macxx.tar.Z -- Ribbons 3.16 for Mac OSX X-on-X (not aqua). Apr 19, 2002.