1 Installation

The installation of MathTools requires some preparations that are different for the operation systems they should be used on.

Big Change with MacOS 27 (Golden Gate)

From MacOS 27 on a lot of formerly supported applications will need Rosetta to run and it is already announced that with the next major version (MacOS 28) also Rosetta wil not supported any more. For that reason, we decided to say Good-Bye to ActiveTcl and Python from python.org. The new way is to go on with homebrew for Tcl/Tk and python.

More details follow in the MacOS section.

1.1 Linux Installation

1.1.1 Requirements

Make sure that at least gcc, make, tcl and tk are installed on your system.
Furthermore make sure that Python at least in the version 3.10 with package SymPy is available on your system, either by system wide installation or locally for your user, which is supported by Python. Please read the according Python installation information.
Python is required for the linearisation, normalization of differential equation systems and for isocline computation in the [Slope] module.

1.1.1.1 Unpacking

Copy the file mathtools.tgz to the directory where the software should be installed.
Extract the data from the .tgz-file by
tar -zxvf mathtools.tgz
The archive is unpacked to the directory MATHTOOLS.

1.1.1.2 Compiling

The MathTools are running on 32-bit and 64-bit sytems. Thus, the binaries need to be built after unpacking. Go to the directory MATHTOOLS/src by f.e.
cd MATHTOOLS/src
and execute the script install_all from the command line
./install_all
All the Makefiles in the subdirectories will be executed.

1.1.1.3 Starting

Go to the directory MATHTOOLS.
The main script mft.tcl is executable from the command line and can be referenced by any application starter.

1.2 Windows Installation

Execute the file mathtools-setup.exe and follow the instructions.
The program can be started from the menu in the application group TigerGraphics or from the desktop if the option for a desktop icon has been selected during installation.
Also you should install Python from Python at least in the version 3.10.
Furthermore make sure that the package SymPy is installed with your Python. Please read the according Python installation information from Python.

1.3 MacOS Installation

1.3.1 Requirements

On your Mac you need to obtain the Tcl/Tk package as well as Python from homebrew as described below.
In case that from former versions of MathTools Tcl/Tk and Python were installed as formerly required from ActiveState and from Python, those installation may stay, because the MathTools are directly linked to the homebrew path. But the better way is to clean up the old things, because they might not work any longer on MacOS 28.

1.3.2 Removal of old Stuff

To get rid of the old Tcl/Tk and Python as few commandline actions are required.

Administration work

Please consider that you are going to make use of administration rights in your system. Be careful!

Open the terminal application on your Mac and run the following commands:

This command uninstalls the Tcl/Tk:

/Library/Frameworks/Tcl.framework/Versions/8.6/Resources/Scripts/uninstall

The next commands uninstall Python
(the complete instructions can be found here: uninstall Python)

# Check the Python version
which -a python3
# if a Python framework is found, go ahead
sudo rm -rf /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework
# Delete the remaining Application
sudo rm -rf "/Applications/Python 3.*"

Finally look for any links to the old Python framework in /usr/local/bin

ls -l /usr/local/bin | grep -i '/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework'

and remove them (sudo rm -f) one by one.

1.3.3 Installation of Tcl/Tk and Python with homebrew

To install Tcl/Tk package as well as Python from homebrew the following few steps are necessary:

1.3.3.1 Install Homebrew

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

1.3.3.2 Adjust the Environment

JOHNDOE must be replaced by your user name.

echo >> /Users/JOHNDOE/.zprofile
echo 'eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv zsh)"' >> /Users/JOHNDOE/.zprofile
eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv zsh)"

Close and restart the Terminal application.

brew install --cask miniforge
conda init "$(basename "${SHELL}")"

Again, close and restart the Terminal application.

eval "$(conda "shell.$(basename "${SHELL}")" hook)"
conda config --add channels conda-forge ; conda config --remove channels defaults ; conda config --set channel_priority strict

With miniforge we already have Tcl/Tk available. If you like, link them to /usr/local/bin

sudo ln -s /opt/homebrew/Caskroom/miniforge/base/bin/tclsh /usr/local/bin
sudo ln -s /opt/homebrew/Caskroom/miniforge/base/bin/wish /usr/local/bin

Finally, install Python and some packages.

conda install python=3.14 numpy sympy -y

Python is available at ‘/opt/homebrew/Caskroom/miniforge/base/bin/python’

1.3.4 Download MathTools

Download the appropriate application for your architecture (x86 or arm). Unpack the archive by double clicking on it and finally copy the application container MFT.app either to the systems application folder Programs or to any other desired location and simply start the application like any other one.

Rosetta Issue

If apps using ActiveTcl were installed under previous macOS versions, apps newly built with Homebrew may also prompt you to install Rosetta.

In such cases, open the app’s Info window (right-click) in the Applications folder and uncheck the “Open using Rosetta” option.