On Monday 15 May 2006 12:58, you wrote:

Dear Bruce,

I downloaded the ifeffit-1.2.8.exe installer from cars.uchicago.edu/ifeffit/download.html to my PC running Windows XP version 2002, SP1. I can launch Athena (version 0.8.046 obtained through the download) using either the desktop icon or the runner.exe, but when I try to open one of my data files from NSLS beamline X10c, I get the message: "filename could not be read by ifeffit as data file" My understanding from reading on your website is that Athena should pre-process my data file so it can be read by ifeffit. The version of Athena at the light source had no problem reading my data files. Is there something I can do with this new version to allow it to read my files or do I need to get the old version from my colleagues at NSLS? I've attached one of my data files that could not be opened by this version of Athena. Thanks for any suggestions you can offer!

Hi Nancy, This is a good mailing list question, so I am taking the liberty of CCing my response to the list. Not so long, I changed (hopefully improved) how Athena interacts with strangely formatted data. (NSLS X10C most certainly falls in the category of beamlines with strangely formatted data.) Now, Athena uses a plugin architecture to recognize and process strange data. This feature was implemented in Athena 0.8.045 and is described in some detail here http://cars9.uchicago.edu/iffwiki/HoraeVersion057 and in excruciating detail here http://cars9.uchicago.edu/iffwiki/AthenaFiletypePlugins The bottom line is that you need to enable the X10C plugin by going to the Setting menu, selecting "Plugin Registry", then enabling the X10C plugin by clicking its button on. The plugin registry is persistent -- that is, it remembers which plugins are enabled between sessions. You should only need to enable the X10C plugin once. It would seem that the version of Athena at the beamline either had this feature enabled or was older than version 0.8.045. I certainly had no trouble reading that data file once I had enabled the X10C plugin on my computer. B P.S. The current version of Athena 0.8.049. It is a bit of mystery to me why so many people tell the runner never to update their software. It's your computer and your choice, obviously, but it's a mystery to me nonetheless. To change your runner setting my hand, see: http://cars9.uchicago.edu/iffwiki/IfeffitOnWindows/WinUpdater If the value of "next_checktime" in updater.ini is set to something like "never" or "next year", then it's guaranteed that you'll soon be using an out-of-date version of Athena. -- Bruce Ravel ---------------------------------------------- bravel@anl.gov Molecular Environmental Science Group, Building 203, Room E-165 MRCAT, Sector 10, Advanced Photon Source, Building 433, Room B007 Argonne National Laboratory phone and voice mail: (1) 630 252 5033 Argonne IL 60439, USA fax: (1) 630 252 9793 My homepage: http://cars9.uchicago.edu/~ravel EXAFS software: http://cars9.uchicago.edu/~ravel/software/