I presume that you have put the AFNI directory into your path, as described in [afni.nimh.nih.gov] or elsewhere.

The next step on the road to becoming an AFNI Certified Expert (ACE) is to create a file called .afnirc in your home directory -- the directory you are 'in' when you login and open a terminal window. Here is a simple .afnirc file:

***ENVIRONMENT
AFNI_hotcolor = blue // changes 'Done' button color
AFNI_LEFT_IS_LEFT = YES // subject left on screen left
AFNI_PLUGINPATH = /Users/rwcox/abin

Each line sets an 'environment' variable, which is a Unix setting. These are described more fully in the README.environment and README.setup files (which you should find in you AFNI binary directory). You can copy these 4 lines into your .afnirc file to begin your setup. The stuff after the '//' at the end of the lines is commentary.

The AFNI_PLUGINPATH environment variable is the name of the directory where AFNI will search for plugins when it starts up. In the example above, this is my AFNI binary directory on my Mac. You will have to change this, unless your login name is 'rwcox', to wherever you stored the AFNI binaries. If AFNI_PLUGINPATH is not set, then AFNI searches your path instead -- if you get a message that it found some plugins, then it succeeded. However, searching the entire path is slow, so setting AFNI_PLUGINPATH to the correct location will speed up your startup.

Don't worry about the 'anat parent' messages. They probably won't have any effect.

bob cox