Migrating from AIJ v5.x to v6.x

[karenacollins]

AstroImageJ has migrated to a new platform as of version 6.x. The new platform consists of several underlying changes that will somewhat change the user experience.

First, the AstroImageJ website is migrating away from the University of Louisville website that has hosted AIJ for over a decade (thank you to Professor John Kielkopf for maintaining the hosting at UofL!). The new website at https://astroimagej.com is hosted on GitHub for longevity and sustainability. You should plan to migrate as soon as it is practical since the UofL website will eventually not be supported. If you find that your version 5 updates are no long working, it is likely that the UofL website might be no longer supported at that time. In that case, you will need to uninstall AIJ version 5, and download a new install package for v6 from https://astroimagej.com/#download.

However, we recommend that you use the AIJ update capability now to move to version 6 because it will preserve your memory setting and any custom observatories that you have set up (as well as preferences). If you are updating from version 5.x, you will need to first update to version 5.6.0. This uses the old update process. Once you restart AIJ after the update to v5.6.0, you will be immediately notified that you should run another update. Version 5.6.0 uses the new update process to update to version of 6.x. Once you update to v6.x, you will not be able to downgrade to versions 5.x. However, for now the version 5.6 new installation packages are still available on the UofL website if you run into a problem.

A second change to the new platform enhances the capability and security of new install packages and the update capability. The new packages use multiple levels of cryptographic signing. To support the new capabilities and signing, the new update process effectively implements a full installation, but avoids the user having to access the website and go through the process manually. The new update process will require a few more clicks on some platforms, and even a password entry on Mac computers, but we believe the additional steps are justified to support the increase in capabilities and security.

If you encounter a problem updating to v6, please post us a message here giving as much detail about where you were in the process, and what went wrong at the step where it broke (and of course the OS you are running).

If you for some reason find that you are unable to use AIJ after an update, version 6 new install packages  are available at https://astroimagej.com/#download. If you find that you have to install version 6 for the first time using a new install package (rather than through the update facility), after previously running v5, preferences will be maintained, but you may need to re-set-up any custom observatory entries that you have, as well as any custom memory set up that you have entered.

Karen