Using CiteSpace on Mac

Download the 7z File
To use CiteSpace on Mac, you need to download the 7z file to your Mac. You can then use the Unarchiver tool to unpack the 7z file. You will see a new folder named similar to 5.3.R10.2.2.2019.
Launch CiteSpace
Although you may double click on the CiteSpaceV.jar file directly to launch CiteSpace, I recommend you use the following approach. It allows you to optimize the use of your computer's RAM. CiteSpace will run faster with more RAM and it will be able to handle a bigger dataset too.
To launch CiteSpace with a customized amount of RAM, create a simply shell script. You can name the shell script in anyway you like, for example, run.sh or launch.sh.
Open a Terminal on Mac and use the nano text editor to create the run.sh script:
nano run.sh
If you have never used nano, me neither. Very simply to use. Use Control + o to save the content of the file. You will be prompted with "File Name to Write: run.sh" at the bottom of the nano editor. Simply hit the Enter key. When you are done with nano, use Control + x to quit.
Now enter the following three lines as the content of the run.sh script:
#!/bin/bash
echo Launching CiteSpace …
java -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8 -Duser.country=US -Duser.language=en -Xms1g -Xmx4g -Xss5m -jar CiteSpaceV.jar
This shell script will ask the amount of RAM between 1-4GB for the Java virtual machine. With newer Java, it is possible to make it more dynamic, but for now this is the way to do it.
One last thing to check before running the script is to make sure it is executable. This is to avoid the errors your Mac may tell you "Permission Denied".
Use ls -la run.sh to check whether your run.sh is executable. If you see the following,
rwxr--r-- for your run.sh, you need to make the following change. Very simple:
chmod +x run.sh
It will become
rwxr-xr-x and you will be good to go.
In the Terminal, type ./run.sh to launch CiteSpace.
Refresh the .citespace directory on Mac
If you have installed an earlier version of CiteSpace, you might need to refresh the .citespace directory so that CiteSpace can have a clean start. For example, if CiteSpace cannot load projects you have created with earlier versions of CiteSpace, you may need to follow the refresh steps. The general idea is the same regardless on Windows or Mac.
I am borrowing my son's Mac so I will use his username stevenchen as an example. I will use a Terminal window to locate the .citespace directory and remove it along with any files and subdirectories in it. If you are not familiar with Mac, like me, you can use Launchpad and search for Terminal. Once you open up a Terminal window, you would land in the home directory associated with your username, e.g. /Users/stevenchen. You can verify this with the command pwd. Usually, .citespace would be hidden from your listing if you use ls only. Use the following command instead:
ls -la .citespace
If it turns out that you do not have a .citespace directory in your home directory, then you can skip the removal steps and start CiteSpace directly.
To remove the .citespace directory, use the following command. Don't worry, CiteSpace will automatically generate a new .citespace with the latest files.
rm -R .citespace
I will update it with some screenshots when I get a chance. In the meantime, feel free to leave messages below if you encounter any problems to launch CiteSpace.