The current version of Panoply is 2.6.2, released 2008-09-15.
The Panoply "Generic" package is for computers not running the Mac OS X or Windows operating system.
Panoply requires that a Java 5 runtime environment, or better, be installed.
Download the Panoply archive format you prefer.
In addition to the map overlays (continent masks and outlines) included in the Panoply application distribution, there are a dozen other overlays available for separate download.
For additional scale colorbar palettes, the cpt-city website includes many CPT format files which are compatible with Panoply.
Depending on your operating system and how you have it set up, installing Panoply may be as simple as double-clicking the PanoplyJ archive icon on your desktop. If not, then you may have to use the appropriate command-line call from the shell.
The Panoply archive contains a folder called PanoplyJ which holds the following items:
Again, depending on your operating system, you should be able to launch Panoply by simply double-clicking on the Panoply.jar file. But if that doesn't work, then you would need to launch from a shell command line by typing:
java -jar Panoply.jar
If you expect to deal with a high-resolution dataset — for example a lon-lat array gridded at finer than 1° resolution — then you should change the above command to include an option instruction to Java to use more memory. The following should suffice:
java -Xmx128m -jar Panoply.jar
That will grab 128 MB of memory rather than the default 64 MB. If you have memory to burn then you might up the limit to 256 MB via:
java -Xmx256m -jar Panoply.jar