homebrew-arb

Homebrew tap for formulae to build ARB and related software.

Open tasks

• bottles
• integration into the ARB release cycle, formula needs to be tagged, too
• add formula for SINA
• add SINA to ARB

Prerequisites

Homebrew is required to install ARB via the formula provided in this tap.

Add this tap to your Homebrew installation.

brew tap arb-project/arb

ARB requires a X11 server. It was bundled with MacOS from version 10.5 to 10.7. For all modern MacOS versions, it must be installed separately. If you have already installed XQuartz on your Mac, you are fine. Otherwise you must install it either by using the installer provided on the XQuartz website or via Homebrew:

brew install --cask xquartz

Using a Mac with M1 processor

At the moment, we do not support running ARB natively on M1 Macs (due to the lack of testing device). However, ARB can be installed and run on these devices using the Rosetta compatibility layer. Please see the ARB wiki for the additional steps required.

Install ARB

The arb formula allows you to install three different versions of ARB on your Mac via two formulas. Homebrew and ARB are using different naming conventions for the builds.

ARB name	Homebrew name	Formula	command
release	stable	arb@7	brew install arb-project/arb/arb@7
production	stable	arb	brew install arb-project/arb/arb
stable	head	arb@7	brew install --HEAD arb-project/arb/arb@7
trunk	head	arb	brew install --HEAD arb-project/arb/arb

The production version of ARB is installed and used in-house at MPI for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Germany, and is also the recommended version under Linux. It is frequently updated from development changes, i.e. it contains recent bug fixes and the newest features, but also may break working things. It is updated at least every few months.

If you use the production version, please file bug reports (if you encounter any bugs) via the ARB bug tracker. It helps the ARB team to make the next release version more stable.

The trunk version of ARB gives you the latest changes from development, including the latest bug fixes and features. However, any of the changes might break working things as the version might just be in the beginning of being tested. It is not recommended to install this version for daily, productive usage but it gives you the opportunity to test if the latest changes in development resolve any issues you might have with the release and/or production version of ARB.

The stable version is not intended for end-users as it will - most of the time - be the same as the release version. Only shortly before a release, it will contain the next release version (a.k.a release candidate). We require this version for the final tests to make sure a release will also work on macOS. You should never need to install this version unless the ARB team asks you to.

Install multiple versions of ARB at the same time

The four versions listed above, can be installed at the same time but only one can be linked by Homebrew (meaning you can execute it by typing arb). Before installing an additional version, you should unlink the existing one (see Switching between versions). Otherwise, Homebrew will complain that it cannot link the new version:

Error: The `brew link` step did not complete successfully
The formula built, but is not symlinked into /usr/local
[... rest of the error message is omitted for the sake brevity]

Install an old release / production version

If you need to install an old version you need to activate the corresponding version of the formula. The oldest versions you can install are

• arb@7: 7.0
• arb: 6.1-beta_r18660

Let's assume you have installed the latest production version but you also want to install version 6.1-beta_r18660:

# unlink the current production version of ARB
brew unlink arb

# change into the directory containing your local copy of this tap
cd "$(brew --repo arb-project/arb)"

# if you do not know the exact version you need to install, you can list
# the available ones
git tag

# activate the old version of the formula
git checkout tags/v6.1.0

# install and tell Homebrew that it must not activate the newest version of the
# formula
HOMEBREW_NO_AUTO_UPDATE=1 brew install arb-project/arb/arb

After this steps version 6.1-beta_r18660 of ARB will be installed and your active ARB version.

Install arbitrary versions of ARB

You can install arbitrary versions of ARB by editing the Homebrew formula for ARB and specifying a revision for the head build. This requires you to be a brew expert user. If you don't know how to edit formulas you shouldn't do it.

Please keep in mind that the revision you are trying to install might contain broken features or might not even compile (on a Mac) at all. Building older revisions might even require to change the dependencies and/or build steps in the formula. Please be aware that you build these revisions on you own risk and that we cannot provide support for these builds.

Switching between versions

When you install different versions of ARB you can switch between them using the Homebrew's unlink and link command. You first need to unlink the version your are currently using and then link the version you would like to use.

ARB version	Unlink command	Link command
release	brew unlink arb@7	brew link arb@7
production	brew unlink arb	brew link arb
stable	brew unlink arb@7	brew link --HEAD arb@7
trunk	brew unlink arb	brew link --HEAD arb

Configuration

arb supports several environment variables to customise parts of the application as described in the help. The following sections describe macOS specific values to be used for variables which customise the external applications arb calls to view / edit files.

ARB_TEXTEDIT

This variable defines the application arb starts for editing text files. On macOS, this defaults to TextEdit. If you have set a different default text editor for macOS and want to use it with arb, too, set the environment variable to the following value:

export ARB_TEXTEDIT="open -t"

To use a different macOS application than your default text editor with arb, you need to pass its name to the open command, e.g. for using the BBEdit editor you would use the following value:

export ARB_TEXTEDIT="open -a BBEdit"

ARB_GS

This variable defines the application that arb calls to show Postscript files. If you do not set this variable, the default application registered for Postscript files on your macOS will be used, the macOS default is Apple Preview.

If you want to use a different application, e.g. Affinity Designer to open the Postscript files from within ARB, you can use the following value:

export ARB_GS="open -W -a 'Affinity Designer'"

Please make sure that you add the -W option to the open command. Otherwise, arb might delete the file before the other program reads it.

ARB_PDFVIEW

This variable defines the application that arb calls to show PDF files. If you do not set this variable, the default application registered for PDF files on your macOS will be used, the macOS default is Apple Preview.

If you want to use a different application, e.g. Affinity Designer to open the PDF files from within ARB, you can use the following value:

export ARB_PDFVIEW="open -W -a 'Affinity Designer'"

Please make sure that you add the -W option to the open command. Otherwise, arb might delete the file before the other program reads it.