Supplement to OFR91-587B

The considerable changes that computers and their graphic 
displays have undergone since ALACARTE was first published 
in 1991, together with changes in ArcInfo software itself, 
have created a challenge in keeping ALACARTE functional. 
ALACARTE was written to be run on a UNIX host, with remote 
access via graphics terminals. Since then the graphics 
terminals have become desktop computers, which can access 
ArcInfo and ALACARTE from a remote host, but can also run 
the programs directly. And those desktop machines are 
generally not UNIX machines.

ALACARTE-ArcInfo (workstation ArcInfo) is being run today 
(2011) at the USGS in Menlo Park in two modes, on central 
UNIX servers accessed through graphics shells from desktop 
computers, and within UNIX shells directly on desktop PCs 
and in PC emulators on Macs. Although ArcInfo does run 
directly on PCs, the use of a UNIX shell (such as cygwin) 
obviates ALACARTE errors arising from its UNIX-specific 
code. We have not tested ALACARTE-ArcInfo on Mac UNIX. 

The basic steps in installing ALACARTE remain the same: 
store the ALACARTE code somewhere in a directory named 
alacarte (thus alacarte/main/, alacarte/edit, etc.), point 
to that place by editing alacarte.aml (located in the 
alacarte/main directory), make the other edits specified in 
that aml, and copy it to the arc directory under atool (not 
arctools) in the arcexe__ directory (where ArcInfo is 
stored; for example, C:\ArcGIS\arecexe10x\atool\arc). The 
other installation step, important if ALACARTE symbol sets 
are to be used, is to copy them from the alc/symbols 
directory to the ArcInfo symbols directory. Note that ESRI 
now provides line and marker symbol sets named geology, so 
those need to be renamed if the ALACARTE equivalents are to 
be used. Perhaps the most important ALACARTE symbol set is 
alc1.shd, a shade set that contains a wide range of colors 
of varying saturations, including browns. A 20x26-inch 
colored figure that illustrates this shadeset is included 
in the alc/symbols directory as alc1.pdf, which was 
originally made as a graphics file using the colorgrid 
coverage. [Note that some of the line and marker symbols in 
the standard ALACARTE symbol sets may not work properly.]

Various changes in the ALACARTE code have been made over 
the years to help keep it running, but some things are now 
broken. Perhaps most prominently, calls through the 
operating system to open a text editor may fail (see the 
setting for .alc$host in alacarte.aml and the aml file 
specified there; all located in alc/main).

Two constraints for use on PCs should be noted: path names 
should be kept short (some aml functions choke on long 
names) and, contrary to standard Windows useage, directory 
and files names may not contain spaces. The latter applies 
to workspaces, coverages, and most particularly to the path 
to the ALACARTE code; none should be stored in the Windows 
'My Documents' directory. Note also that ArcInfo is erratic 
in whether it recognizes capital letters. It is best to 
avoid them in paths and file names.