Mac Update Causes Cursor Problem

QUESTION: The most recent update to Mac OS X (10.5.5), which included updates to X11, appears to have caused problems with the IDL Cursor routine. The fixes that I have applied in the past, such as this:

   defaults write com.apple.x11 wm_click_through -bool true

   defaults write org.x.x11 wmclickthrough -bool true

no longer work. I'm wondering if there are any obvious solutions to this problem.

ANSWER: You will need to update a new version of IDL for Macintosh computers, according to Bill Okubo of ITTVIS:

A new update for IDL on Macintosh computers is now available. The IDL 7.0.4 release adds support for Macintosh Intel 64-bit architecture on OS X 10.5. IDL 7.0.4 also fixes two issues that impacted all supported Macintosh platforms: CR49844 - "Creation of Semaphores Fails under Mac OS X 10.5", and CR51198/CR51412 - "CURSOR/RDPIX Procedures not Working Correctly on OS X".

The download, release notes and installation instructions are available on the ITTVIS website. (You may need to click this link a second time after you login to the ITTVIS site)

Note: some IDL Macintosh users who are current on software maintenance may encounter a license error when trying to run the IDL 7.0.4 update. If you encounter this issue, please contact ITTVIS Technical Support. They will issue a new license file that works properly with IDL 7.0.4.

Other users have reported that just installing the update doesn't fix all the problems. It has been reported that updating to X11 version 2.3.1 is also required to get the Cursor routine to work correctly on Macintosh computers.

Another user reports that the wm_click_through trick didn't work, but that he found an option in the X11:Preferences:Window called "Click-through Inactive Windows" that needed to be enabled. That solved the problem for him.

And yet another user claims that most Mac users are finding the XQuartz distribution to have fewer bugs and to generally work better than other X11 distributions.

Version of IDL used to prepare this article: IDL 7.0.3.