QGIS 0.8.0 Release Notes for Macintosh

Contents

1. Requirements
2. Included Libraries
3. Known limitations
4. GPS Plugin
5. GRASS Plugin

1. Requirements

This release of QGIS requires Mac OS X 10.3.9 or 10.4. A PostgreSQL version 7 or 8 server with PostGIS extensions installed is required if using PostgreSQL features.

2. Included Libraries

The following libraries are included with this distribution of QGIS. If you have other versions of these libraries installed, QGIS will ignore your versions and use these.

GDAL 1.3.2 (libgdal.1.10.0.dylib)
GEOS 2.2.3 (libgeos.2.2.3.dylib)
PROJ 4.4.9 (libproj.0.5.0.dylib)
SQLITE3 3.3.6 (libsqlite3.0.8.6.dylib)
Xerces-C++ 2.7.0 (libxerces-c.27.0.dylib)
Qt/Mac 4.2.2 (various Qt frameworks)
GIF 4.1.4 (libgif.4.1.4.dylib)
JPEG 6b (libjpeg.62.0.0.dylib)
PNG 1.2.8 (libpng.3.1.2.8.dylib)
TIFF 3.8.2 (libtiff.3.dylib)
GeoTIFF 1.2.3 (libgeotiff.1.2.3.dylib)
JasPer 1.701.0.GEO (libjasper-1.701.1.0.0.dylib)
Expat 2.0.0 (libexpat.1.5.0.dylib)
GSL 1.8 (libgsl.0.9.0.dylib, libgslcblas.0.0.0.dylib)
PostgreSQL 8.2.0 (libpq.5.0.dylib) This client can also access a version 7 server.
GRASS 6.2.1 (libgrass_*.6.2.1.dylib)

3. Known limitations

Some dialogs have cosmetic issues with buttons.

If the International System Preferences Language is changed, it will not affect QGIS until the next login. To use a different language without relogging in, start QGIS from a Terminal session. For example:

qgis.app/Contents/MacOS/qgis --lang it

4. GPS Plugin

To use GPSBabel with the GPS plugin, QGIS must be able to find it. This can be done in one of two ways. Create a symbolic link to GPSBabel in some directory already on your search path:

ln -s /Applications/GPSBabel+\ 1.3.0/gpsbabel /usr/local/bin/gpsbabel

or add the folder containing GPSBabel to your search path:

export PATH=$PATH:/Applications/GPSBabel+\ 1.3.0

5. GRASS Plugin

To use all the functions of the GRASS plugin, QGIS should be launched from inside GRASS. This can be done in two ways.

One method is to launch QGIS from the GRASS command-line prompt:

/Applications/qgis-0.8.0/qgis.app/Contents/MacOS/qgis

Another method is to add a menu item for QGIS to the GRASS menu bar.

To do this for GRASS 6.0.x, open the file
/Applications/Grass/grass60.app/Contents/Resources/grass-6.0.0/etc/dm/menu.tcl
using a text editor and add the following three lines just before the line beginning with  "&Help" which should be line 500. (The second line is very long and is probably displayed here on more than one line. It begins with "{command" and ends with "} }".)

"&Ext" all options $tmenu {
{command "Open QGIS" {} "Open QGIS (Quantum GIS) with Grass support enabled" {} -command { exec $env(GRASS_HTML_BROWSER) "/Applications/qgis-0.8.0/qgis.app" & } }
}

For GRASS 6.1.x, the menu.tcl file has changed considerably. Although it is still possible to add an Open QGIS command, the above text must be modified and cannot be inserted as is.

After making this edit and launching GRASS, you can select "Open QGIS" from the new Ext (external application) menu.

Thanks to Lorenzo Moretti for providing the GRASS 6.0.x menu information.

If you try to use the GRASS plugin while not running GRASS, you will be able to open GRASS files but not use GRASS tools. If you have not previously run QGIS with GRASS, you may be prompted for the location of the GRASS directory GISBASE. Because this directory is inside the GRASS application bundle and cannot be directly selected, you should choose Cancel and then run QGIS from inside GRASS. QGIS will remember the GISBASE directory for subsequent launches.