03. Install and Uninstall CiteSpace

CiteSpace is a Java application. You should be able to run it on a computer that supports Java, including Windows or Mac. CiteSpace is currently optimized for Windows 64-bit Java 17.

To run a Java application on your computer, you need to have Java installed on your computer. Make sure you download either the 64-bit or the 32-bit version to match your computer's operating system.

After you download the zip file to your computer, unpack the zip file to a folder of your choice. You will see two files in the folder. Now you can start CiteSpace by double clicking on the StartCiteSpace file.

Configuration

Memory

The performance of CiteSpace is influenced by the amount of memory accessible to the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) on which CiteSpace is running. To analyze a large amount of records, you should consider allocating as much as memory for CiteSpace to use. If you need to modify the amount memory allocated for CiteSpace (more precisely for Java Virtual Machine on which CiteSpace to be running), you can edit StartCiteSpace as a plain text file with any text editor.

You can modify the StartCiteSpace.bat file to optimize the setting. More specifically, modify line 14 in the file. For example, -Xmx2g means that CiteSpace may get a maximum of 2GB of RAM to work with. Save the file after making any changes. And restart CiteSpace.

Locale

Using CiteSpace with a mismatched locale setting may cause some problems, for example, links are missing from the visualized network.

If decimals are not displayed properly in CiteSpace, i.e. 0,5 rather than 0.5, then you should edit the locale setting accordingly in the StartCiteSpace.bat. 

The default locale in the StartCiteSpace.bat is for English(United States), i.e. en_US:

-Duser.country=US

-Duser.language=en

You should update the user.country and user.language to your actual locale according to the following list:

http://www.localeplanet.com/java/

For example, use zh_CN for Chinese(China),

-Duser.country=CN

-Duser.language=zh

use de_DE for German(Germany)

-Duser.country=DE

-Duser.language=de

Save the StartCiteSpace.bat after you make changes, and then start CiteSpace.

Remove Previously Used Webstart Versions

To remove CiteSpace on your computer, open a command line prompt and type javaws -viewer. Follow the instructions and remove cached copies of CiteSpace. 

Refresh CiteSpace

If you delete or rename the folder /Users/loginName/.citespace and then launch CiteSpace, CiteSpace will reset the configuration, including reconstructing the .citespace directory from scratch.