Installing LaBB-CAT on Mac OS X systems

Important

LaBB-CAT can only be installed on newer M-series Macs.

These instructions will not work for older Intel-based Macs. Sorry!

On OS X, there are two prerequisites that must be installed before you can install LaBB-CAT:

  1. Homebrew
  2. Java

You may already have one or other of these installed; if so, you can skip the corresponding section below.

1. Install Homebrew

Homebrew is a ‘package manager’ for Mac computers, which allows you to install other programes, including Java.

  1. Open the following page in your web browser:
    https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/releases/latest
  2. Scroll down to the Assets section.
    Assets
  3. Click the file called Homebrew-n.n.n.pkg (where n.n.n is the version number) to download the file.
  4. Once the file has been downloaded, double-click on it to run the installer.
    Homebrew Installer
  5. Click Continue, Continue, Agree and Install to complete the installation.

2. Install Java

  1. Open Launchpad and type Terminal.
  2. Double click Terminal to open a command shell.
  3. Type in the following command:
    brew install openjdk
  4. Press the key on your keyboard to enter the command.
    Some text will appear in the Terminal window while Homebrew downloads everything it needs to install Java
    Once it’s finished, you’ll see the % shell prompt again.
Figure 1: brew install openjdk

3. Install LaBB-CAT

Once Homebew and Java are installed, you can install LaBB-CAT:

  1. Open the following page in your web browser:
    https://sourceforge.net/projects/labbcat/files/install/
    This page has all versions of the LaBB-CAT installer, both for personal computer installations
    and also for web-server installations. The the files are listed most recent first.
  2. Download the first file named install-labbcat_yyyymmdd.jar (where yyyymmdd are numbers).
  3. Double-click on the file you just downloaded to open it.
    Most likely you will see a message that the files was “Not Opened” as show in Figure 2.
Figure 2: install-labbcat…jar Not Opened
  1. Go to the Apple menu and select System Settings.
  2. Select the section labelled Privacy and Security.
  3. Scroll to the bottom and under the Security heading you will see a message saying that install-labbcat_yyyymmdd.jar “was blocked to protect your Mac.” as shown in Figure 3
Figure 3: Privacy and Security: Open Anyway
  1. Press Open Anyway.
    You will see another warning message as shown in Figure 4
Figure 4: Open Anyway (again)
  1. Press Open Anyway.
    You may see a request for Java to access your Downloads folder like in Figure 5.
Figure 5: Allow Java access to Downloads
  1. If so, press Allow.

You should see the LaBB-CAT installer program (Figure 6).

Figure 6: LaBB-CAT Installer
  1. Press Start.

You should see a progress bar while components are installed and files are copied.

Once the installation is finished, the progress bar will be all blue, and there will be a button labelled Finished (Figure 7).

Figure 7: Installer finished
  1. Press Finished.

Your default web browser will open on your LaBB-CAT home page, as show in Figure 8.

Figure 8: LaBB-CAT is successfully installed and running
  1. If you a shown the LaBB-CAT Licence page, scroll to the bottom and press I Agree.

As seen in Figure 9, in your Applications folder, you will see that there is a LaBB-CAT entry that can be used to access LaBB-CAT from now on.

Figure 9: Use Applications/LaBB-CAT to open LaBB-CAT

Uninstalling LaBB-CAT

In future you may want to uninstall LaBB-CAT, in which case you can use the same installer you used to install it.

If you run install-labbcat_yyyymmdd.jar and LaBB-CAT is already installed, after pressing Start it will offer further options.

Running install-labbcat_yyyymmdd.jar when LaBB-CAT is already installed

The options are:

  • Upgrade – Install this version of LaBB-CAT, keeping all your corpus data intact.
  • Replace – Install LaBB-CAT afresh, deleting all your existing corpus data and leaving you with an empty LaBB-CAT installation.
  • Uninstall – Remove LaBB-CAT from your personal computer.
  • Cancel – Close the installer without taking any action.

Reuse