Installing and Updating

If you have not already done so, visit the Download page to get your platform's version of GDAT.

Save the file in your preferred download location.

If needed, extract the zipfile.

GDAT has no direct connection to the internet and therefore does not update automatically. It is up to the user to choose when to update and how often.

After updating, it is strongly recommended that you “Remove All Templates” and do a fresh “Activate Data Templates”. This will ensure that any changes to templates that are part of the new version will be used for imports. Ensure that you have exported any custom templates first, as these will also be removed.

Windows

Double click on the “GDAT Windows Setup.exe” file to start installation.
Click “Yes” to the window that says, “Do you want to allow this app to make changes to your device”.
Click Next
Accept the agreement and click “Next”
Decide where you want the files and click “Next”
Decide if you want a desktop icon and click “Next”
Click on “Install”
Click “Finish”. You can delete the .zip and .exe files if you choose to. Move the shortcut to the destination of your choice.
You will now be prompted to name your new database and select a location for it. You can leave the defaults, or change the database name and its location, your choice.The default name for a database is “GDAT_created_on_yyyy-mm-dd" (where yyyy-mm-dd is the date you create the database).
A notification is typically displayed indicating that you are ready to go, click "OK".

Updating

After backing up your existing GDAT database, follow steps 1 to 8 above to update to a newer version of GDAT. On Windows there is no need to remove a prior version before updating.

Mac

Go to your downloads folder and double-click on the zip download to decompress the file. This will create a folder called "OS X 64 bit" in the Downloads folder.
Open the "OS X 64 bit" folder. Drag "Genealogical DNA Analysis Tool" from there to the Applications folder.
Due to MacOS security, you need to follow a different procedure the first time to start GDAT.
Open the Applications folder.
Right-click on "Genealogical DNA Analysis Tool" and select "Open". This will bring up a warning about the developer not being verified. Click Cancel.
Right-click on "Genealogical DNA Analysis Tool" and select "Open" again.
You will get another pop up that reads ‘macOS cannot verify the developer of ‘GDAT’. Are you sure you want to open it? Click on Open.
After this you can start up GDAT like any other application without right-clicking on the program in the Applications folder.

step 4

step 5

Updating

After backing up your existing GDAT database, follow the steps above to update to a newer version of GDAT. You may need to remove the old version before installing the new version.

Note:
Current evidence indicates that Xojo, the programming base of GDAT, does not work with Parallels.
See https://docs.xojo.com/Resources:System_Requirements for more information about minimum system requirements.

Linux

This section has been provided by a Linux user who first posted it here on Github.

1. Download the ZIP file for your distribution's architecture. ex. "64 bit"

2. In a terminal navigate to your "Downloads" directory.

3. Extract the file using your preferred archiving tool into your PATH. ex. unzip

unzip 'Linux 64 bit.zip' /home/$USER/.local/bin

4. Navigate to the binary.

cd /home/$USER/.local/bin/Linux\ 64\ bit/Genealogical\ DNA\ Analysis\ Tool/

5. Make the binary executable.

chmod +x Genealogical\ DNA\ Analysis\ Tool/

6. Create a Softlink to easily run the executable from the terminal.

ln -s /home/$USER/.local/bin/Linux\ 64\ bit/Genealogical\ DNA\ Analysis\ Tool/Genealogical\ DNA\ Analysis\ Tool /home/$USER/.local/bin/gdat

7. Run from the terminal and detached if the link is located within $PATH.

gdat &

Simply changing the name of the binary will result in an error.

(Tested on Debian 11.3 Stable requiring no additional dependencies. 4 Jan 2023)