homebrew-therion

March 3, 2026 ยท View on GitHub

Therion is cave surveying software. For details, see https://therion.speleo.sk.

This repository hosts a Homebrew formula for easier installation and updates of Therion on macOS.

The formula is typically updated after each stable Therion release and/or when macOS changes. Pull requests with fixes are welcome.

It should work on the latest and previous macOS versions (the two most recent versions currently supported by Apple). It may also work on older versions, but our testing capacity is limited, so compatibility there is not guaranteed.

It uses CMake (not the legacy Make-based build). If you hit installation issues, please check Troubleshooting before submitting an issue.

Please do not report issues unrelated to installing Therion on macOS here. Therion bugs and feature requests belong in: https://github.com/therion/therion.

Installation

Launch the Terminal app and follow the instructions.

1. Install Homebrew - https://brew.sh/

You need local admin rights to install Homebrew and the Xcode Command Line Tools. During the installation, macOS will prompt for your password (possibly more than once).

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

The Command Line Tools for Xcode will be downloaded and installed automatically.

After Homebrew finishes installing, follow any "Next steps" shown by the installer so PATH updates take effect.

If the brew command is still not found in your current Terminal session, either open a new Terminal window or run:

Apple Silicon:

eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)"

Intel:

eval "$(/usr/local/bin/brew shellenv)"

Test it:

brew update && brew doctor

If you want to disable Homebrew analytics, run:

brew analytics off

2. Install Prerequisites

XQuartz provides the X11 server required by XTherion.

brew install --cask xquartz

MacTeX provides TeX/pdfTeX tools used by Therion to generate map outputs (e.g., PDF) and related typesetting.

brew install --cask basictex

3. Install Therion

Legacy migration step (skip this on new installs): if you already have Therion installed from the old tap (ladislavb/homebrew-therion), uninstall it first and untap the old repository:

brew uninstall therion && brew untap ladislavb/homebrew-therion

Tap the new official repository:

brew tap therion/homebrew-therion

To install the stable version of Therion, run:

brew install therion

If you want to test the latest development revision from Therion's source code on GitHub, run:

brew install --HEAD therion

4. Copying Loch to /Applications

Loch is installed inside the Therion Cellar prefix. If you have an older version of Loch in Applications, remove it, then copy the new version with:

cp -R "$(brew --prefix therion)/loch.app" /Applications/loch.app

Running Apps

Open a new Terminal window.

You should be able to:

  • start XTherion by running xtherion in Terminal
  • run the Therion compiler by running therion in Terminal
  • launch the Loch viewer from Launchpad or Spotlight

Update

Launch the Terminal app and run:

brew update && brew upgrade therion

If you previously copied Loch to /Applications, copy it again after upgrading:

cp -R "$(brew --prefix therion)/loch.app" /Applications/loch.app

Uninstall

Launch the Terminal app and run:

brew uninstall therion

Optional cleanup:

rm -rf /Applications/loch.app

Troubleshooting

XTherion UI is broken

After starting XTherion from Terminal, you may see the following warning:

DEPRECATION WARNING: The system version of Tk is deprecated and may be removed in a future release. Please don't rely on it. Set TK_SILENCE_DEPRECATION=1 to suppress this warning.

Solution/Workaround:

  • Put the Homebrew Tcl/Tk version first in your PATH:
    • Apple Silicon: echo 'export PATH="/opt/homebrew/opt/tcl-tk/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc
    • Intel: echo 'export PATH="/usr/local/opt/tcl-tk/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc
  • Open a new Terminal window and run XTherion. It should use the newer Tcl/Tk version from now on.