Epsilon for macOS Startup and Privacy Contexts

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Epsilon User's Manual and Reference

    Getting Started

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       Unix Installation

       macOS Installation

          Epsilon for macOS Keyboard Issues

          Epsilon for macOS Startup and Privacy Contexts

       DOS Installation

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Epsilon User's Manual and Reference > Getting Started > macOS Installation >

Epsilon for macOS Startup and Privacy Contexts

When you run Epsilon for macOS via its icon, a helper program adds the following flags to its command line: -dir $HOME -w1 -add. This makes it start in your home directory the first time you start it, remember any directory you've set from session to session, and use a single instance.

When you run Epsilon on macOS 10.15 Catalina (or later), Epsilon's startup helper tries to ensure it's running in a privacy context that permits macOS to ask for your permission before Epsilon can access privacy-protected folders like Downloads, Documents, or Desktop. (If not, macOS will either block Epsilon from accessing such folders, or apply the privacy context of some other program like Terminal.)

For this to work, XQuartz must be installed (so Epsilon runs as an X11 program), and you must either start Epsilon from its icon, or else (for command-line invocation), without using sudo. If you're connecting to your Mac over an ssh connection, that will also keep macOS from selecting Epsilon's privacy context.

You can change your privacy selections for Epsilon under System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Files and Folders, or let Epsilon access all files by manually adding it to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Full Disk Access.)

Unlike most Unix-based systems, macOS applications run from an icon aren't descended from any shell process that loads user-defined environment variables. Since Epsilon uses some environment variables for configuration, on macOS, Epsilon's helper program loads environment variables from the file ~/.epsilon/environment if it exists. The format is a series of lines with VAR=VALUE, the same as the env command produces. Invalid lines are ignored. Any settings here override variables in the environment.

Epsilon includes a setup script, which will install Epsilon and its EEL compiler on your path, so you can run them from the command line more conveniently. Running it is optional. To run Epsilon's setup script from a shell prompt, type

sudo "/Applications/Epsilon 14b6.app/Contents/esetup"

assuming /Applications is where you installed Epsilon, and using the appropriate versioned app name.

If you want to run Epsilon using a shell alias, via an XQuartz Applications menu entry, or in some similar way, either have it run the startup helper program within Epsilon's app bundle (Epsilon.app/Contents/MacOS/epsilon-starter), or use the "open" command on Epsilon's app bundle, rather than directly running the Epsilon binary file within the app bundle.

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Epsilon for macOS Keyboard Issues Getting Started DOS Installation