www.openmolecules.org

Installation And Customization

Installing DataWarrior

DataWarrior installers are available for Linux, Macintosh and Windows. DataWarrior was written in Java and its complete source code is published under the GNU Public License. Installers for the three platforms, and the source code can be downloaded from www.openmolecules.org. The DataWarrior installation contains various example files and a complete user manual, which is accessible from within the application. In addition to the embedded documentation the user manual is also available online at www.openmolecules.org. All installers also contain the Java runtime environment needed.

To install DataWarrior on Windows just double click the downloaded datawarrior.msi file and follow the instructions. Anytime later you may tracelessly uninstall the program using the Control Panel. DataWarrior for Windows is a 64-bit application and includes its own 64-bit Java Runtime environment.

To install DataWarrior on the Macintosh just double click the downloaded datawarrior.dmg file and drag the DataWarrior application icon onto the Application folder. When trying to launch DataWarrior you may get an error message DataWarrior can not be opened because the developer can not be verified.. In this case press Cancel, open System Preferences, and go to Security and Privacy -> General. There will be a message about the program that was blocked, with the option to Open Anyway. In case you want to de-install the software later, just drag the DataWarrior folder from the application folder into the trash.

To install DataWarrior on Linux unpack the downloaded datawarrior.tar.gz file to any location and run the install script with root privileges. To later uninstall DataWarrior you may run /opt/uninstall with root privileges.

Updating DataWarrior

If you didn't disable the automatic update check in the Help menu, then DataWarrior checks when the application is launched, whether an updated version is available. If an update is found, then a respective message is displayed.

In order to update an existing DataWarrior installation to a newer version, we recommend to uninstall the previous version as described above and then to install the new version. If you have saved or modified any files in the DataWarrior installation directory or any of its subfolders (e.g. 'reference', 'example', or the 'macro' folder), then you should copy these files to a safe place before uninstalling the outdated DataWarrior version.

Currently, DataWarrior is officially updated about once a year. In between, there are lots of unofficial development updates with bugfixes and new functionality. Typically, these updates contain steady improvements. However, they are less tested, new functionality may not be documented or not in a final state. You may update the recent official version or any earlier development version by downloading a development update as zip-file, unpack it and move the obtained files into the datawarrior installation directory or its sub-directories, where they typically replace earlier files. To be on the save side, you should backup the original files before replacing them. You find the download links for the current development version on the download page in the small print that appears after clicking the Read And Understood checkbox. On Linux and Windows the datawarrior installation directories are /opt/datawarrior and C:\\Program Files\DataWarrior, respectively. On the Macintosh it is /Applications/DataWarrior.app/Contents/Java for all jar files, while all other files go into /Applications/DataWarrior.app. To open this folder from the Finder, you need to open the Applications folder, do a right (or Control) mouse click on the DataWarrior icon, and select Show Package Contents.

Look & Feel

When DataWarrior launches for the first time, it uses the Graphite Look & Feel, which means that all user interface elements and the background are drawn in a dark grayish tone. This emphasises in particular color-rich views. Since aesthetic perception depends on the individuum, the Help menu allows to choose from a couple of different Look & Feels. The chosen Look & Feels is stored as part of DataWarrior's settings.

Three different Look & Feels on a Macintosh

Hi-Resolution Monitors

During recent years computer and monitor manufacturers have introduced monitors with substantially higher resolutions than what was common before. DataWarrior supports these monitors on all three platforms, but in a slightly different way, because high resolution monitors are handled differently on different operating systems. In general user interface elements as buttons, combo boxes and menu items are enlarged to make up for the smaller pixel size. Therefore, everything looks much sharper.

On Windows the enlargement factor can be defined for all applications in the Display Control Panel under Appearance and Personalization. Under some versions of Windows it is also necessary to disable DPI virtualization for the DataWarrior application. To do so, right-click the name of the DataWarrior executable file, click Properties, click the Compatibility tab, and then select the box labeled Disable display scaling on high DPI settings.

On Retina displays of the Macintosh this factor is predefined as 2.0. And on Linux it depends on the Linux dialect. Sometimes the scaling factor can be defined in the display settings dialog as it was under Ubuntu with the Unity desktop. On the Gnome desktop the scaling factor may be increased for all applications using this command:

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface text-scaling-factor 1.4

DataWarrior recognizes these settings and increases its fonts and user interface elements accordingly. In addition a DataWarrior specific scaling factor can be defined by adding a 'dpifactor' parameter after the -X options into the script that launches DataWarrior ('/opt/datawarrior/datawarrior'). Its second line would then look like this:

java -Xms512m -Xmx4096m -Ddpifactor=1.4 ...

Memory Settings

As all Java programs, DataWarrior has a predefined maximum memory setting, which should allow you to work with rather big data files. If these, however, grow into millions of rows, then you may experience Out of memory errors. If your computer has enough physical memory, then you may increase DataWarrior's maximum memory setting the following way:

On Linux this can be easily done by updating the batch file that launches DataWarrior. Open a shell and type sudo pico /opt/datawarrior/datawarrior (if you can't use sudo, then type su, Enter and, when asked for the password, the super-user password. Then type pico /opt/datawarrior/datawarrior. Look for the -Xmx4096 setting in the last line, which defines the maximum memory size. Increase the number, press Ctrl-O and Enter to save changes and Ctrl-X to exit the editor.

On the Macintosh you do the following: Open a terminal window, type pico /Applications/DataWarrior.app/Contents/Info.plist. A text editor opens. Use the cursor keys to move close to the end of the file, where you will find the -Xmx4096M setting. Increase the number, press Ctrl-O and Enter to save changes and Ctrl-X to exit the editor.