Category: Software

PROJ 4.6.1-1 has a problem locating its data files (like EPSG). Fixed now.

The MapServer 5.2.0-1 installer had a typo in the requirements tests that would cause it to give a javascript error on OSX Tiger if the PROJ framework was missing. Should be fixed now, but I haven’t had a chance to verify that.

PROJ updated to 4.6.1.

OK, slight panic there. I didn’t realize that ~/.pgpass was saving login passwords. Still, it was alarming.

Lesson: periodically review the invisible files in your home folder. A lot of *nix ported software puts stuff there instead of standard OSX prefs and support locations.

I’ll return Bonjour support some time in a future update, it’s not critical feature.

Huh, my browser history says I downloaded the source, yet it was nowhere to be found. Sorry for the delay. (Note: 8.3.2 source was never released)

One big change, and warning for old versions – I removed Bonjour support. For some reason that I’m looking into, a Bonjour connection is always trusted, regardless of how role permissions are defined in pg_hba.conf. And since I could find no way to turn Postgres Bonjour off, I had to remove it completely from the binary.

If you don’t completely trust users on your local network (and need to allow local network access), you should upgrade. If you only access Postgres from the same Mac (external access thru phppgadmin is technically local access) you’re OK. Hopefully it’s just some hba configuration I’m missing.

Mapserver 5.2.0 is now available.

I added some instructions on building other MapScripts that are not included in the installer. This way you don’t have to worry about all the fiddly dependency bits to build MapServer from scratch. They were partially tested on Ruby mapscript on Leopard.

I also added a build script for those that want to build the framework MapServer from source. I was using an Xcode project myself, but that was hard to maintain. The script should work for those still (!) on Panther who want an up-to-date MapServer.

… back to the site update …

GRASS updated. It includes a new version of gpsbabel, 1.3.5, which also fixes a linking issue with libexpat.

A problem with FFTW3 un-fixed itself, and caused trouble with GRASS 6.3. So FFTW3 fixed again, and GRASS 6.3 fixed.

The SQLite program was linked wrong. Fixed.

After waiting for PDFlib to be ready for 64bit Leopard, here’s an alternative.

I never really liked PDFlib – bloated with a customized libtiff and not truly free – and it took a while for the authors to update it for 64bit Leopard (and then it took me a while to realize they had limited the 64bit compiling ability a little in the “Lite” version).

My early search for alternatives turned up libharu, but it was in very early development stages. Now it seems to be mature. For testing purposes, I have made a separate Haru PDF extension with a simple installation. Try it out, let me know how it works. Eventually I’ll roll it into my PHP distribution.

I’ll also attempt, with my limited C skills, to make MapServer use libharu for PDF support, but that could take a while (for me). I may just pass the suggestion onto the MapServer developers and hope.