HP-GL Viewer
Apple Darwin / MacOS X Installation at CERN
[CAD Support]
[HP-GL Viewer]
[CERN Installation Guide]
1. Installing the Application Package
The MacOS X package is available for MacOS X versions running on the Intel (32 and 64 bits) and PowerPC platforms.
The 32 bit Intel version is there for old MacOS releases 10.6 and 10.7, and the 64 bit Intel version is known to
work on MacOS releases from 10.8 to 14 (on ARM-based Macs under Rosetta2).
The PowerPC version has been tested on old 10.2 Jaguar and should work fine on anything newer. To install, get either
one of the Intel packages:
hpglview-543_MacOSX_Intel_32.dmg (32 bits), or
hpglview-543_MacOSX_Intel_64.dmg (64 bits)
or the
PowerPC package
hpglview-543_MacOSX_PPC.dmg.
These packages are standard MacOS disk images, which must be mounted after downloading by double-clicking
them. Install the viewer by moving the application folder HpglView
to the Applications folder. On the Intel platform all file associations including drag-and-drop of files
to the application icon should work out of the box. On PowerPC drag-and-drop works but the file
associations do not get automatically assigned to the viewer.
2. Notes for MacOS X 10.8 Mountain Lion and later
Beginning from MacOS X 10.8, Apple dropped X11 server from the base distribution. As the HP-GL viewer needs
X11 to run, you will need to get it specifically and install it yourself on your machine. For details see
Apple knowledgebase article: About X11 and OS X, which will
give information on how to install XQuartz, a freely available X11 implementation for OS X.
Note: The newest XQuartz releases are incompatible with the current 32 bit binary HP-GL viewer binary. Up to release 2.7.8
XQuartz is known to work, but for newer XQuartz releases, please use the 64 bit version of the HP-GL viewer. However, the 64 bit binary does
not work on old MacOS X releases 10.6. and 10.7.
Note that on MacOS X 10.10 two symbolic links necessary for X11 applications to run, /usr/X11 and /usr/X11R6,
are not created automatically.
Therefore, you may need to create them yourself to make the viewer work. Open the terminal window and run the following commands:
sudo ln -s /opt/X11 /usr/X11
sudo ln -s /opt/X11 /usr/X11R6
As these commands will need to run with administrator privileges, you will be prompted to give your password.
MacOS X 10.8 and later also include a new feature, Gatekeeper, which can be used to restrict running of applications
downloaded from untrusted sources. The CERN HP-GL viewer has not been signed as a certified application by
Apple, which means that in its default settings, Gatekeeper will block it from running (you may see a message
that the application is damaged and should be moved to trash). To enable the viewer
in that case, open the terminal window and run the following command:
sudo xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine /Applications/HpglView
As this command will need to run with administrator privileges, you will be prompted to give your password.
3. Special Information for the Old PowerPC Machines
The MacOS X version of the viewer uses the X11 server. For 10.3 Panther and earlier you may still
be able to find an installation package via Apple Support Downloads page.
For 10.4 Tiger and later the X11 server is included on the distribution media.
[CAD Support]
[HP-GL Viewer]
[CERN Installation Guide]
CERN -- HP-GL Support, modified 2024-05-07