Jalopy comes as a compressed JAR Archive (JAR) that contains all necessary application files. The JAR is executable and provides a graphical setup wizard that lets you install the software in a few easy steps. If you’re about to install Jalopy for the first time, wizard installation is highly recommended. When upgrading, it is usually much simpler to perform a silent install as described in the section called “Silent Installation”.

Step 1: Startup

To start the setup wizard, you may open a shell and type

% java -jar jalopy-setup-1.9.3_156.jar

at the command line. But with modern Java virtual machines, it is usually possible to launch the installer by just double-clicking the downloaded JAR file from within your file manager.

Step 2: Welcome

After you’ve invoked the setup wizard, the welcome screen will appear shortly.

Figure 1.1. Setup Wizard Welcome Screen

Each wizard page contains a button bar at the bottom that provides the available page actions. To proceed to the next page, click the Next button. When available, you can press the Back button to return to the previous page and alter your selections.

You can use the Cancel button at any time to abort the installation. A dialog will appear that asks for confirmation.

Figure 1.2. Cancel Setup Wizard

Press the Exit button to terminate the setup wizard. Press Continue to close the dialog and continue with the installation.

Step 3: License Agreement

Pressing the Next button on the Welcome Page will display the License Agreement.

Figure 1.3. Setup Wizard License Agreement

Read the terms carefully! You need to accept the license agreement before you can proceed with the installation. Select the I accept the terms in the license agreement item and press the Next button to proceed.

Step 4: Installation Features

Pressing the Next button on the License Terms page will bring up the Installation Features page that lets you select what program features setup should install and how.

Figure 1.4. Setup Wizard Installation Features

Select any of the check boxes to mark a feature for installation. Should you ever run the installer again, your choices from the last session are remembered and the screen configured accordingly. When you first select a feature, a file chooser pops up that lets you select the target directory for the specific application. This is usually the root installation or settings directory of the application.

Figure 1.5. Choose Ant Installation Directory

The wizard verifies your selection and ensures valid target directories. If validation should fail, a dialog pops up to inform you about the situation.

Figure 1.6. Installation Directory Verification Failed

Press the Choose Other button if you want to select a different directory. Otherwise, if you want to leave out the feature, you can press the Skip button to end the directory chooser and return to the feature selection screen (or the next directory chooser dialog).

Once a target directory has been set for a feature, it will be displayed below the feature list. You can change the target directory for a feature at any time. First select the corresponding item in the list and then use the Choose... button at the bottom to specify the target directory. Please note that when multiple check boxes are selected, multiple directory choosers will appear one after another. Don’t be confused, just look at the title of each file chooser to see what application directory is required.

Because it can be more convenient to leverage the plug-in manager facility of the IDE, for some plug-ins you can create an IDE specific bundle that can later be installed using the IDE specific provisions. To change the installation target, click the current target item behind the installation feature and choose one of the available options.

Figure 1.7. Choose Eclipse Installation Target

When the installation target has been set to the application specific update manager format, the installation will create an achive bundle in the specified directory, but the plug-in itself won’t be installed into the target application. You will need to use the IDE update manager to perform plug-in installation after the setup wizard has finished.

Step 5: Online Help System (optional)

When the installer can connect with the Internet, and no up-to-date help can be found on your system, you will be presented with the option to download and install the online help system for the GUI.

Figure 1.8. Setup Wizard Download Online Help

It is recommended to let the installer handle help installation, but when you’re installing on a machine without Internet access, you can download the help file separately from http://www.triemax.com/download/jalopy-help-1.9.3.jar and either place it along the directory where the installer sits - it will then be picked up and installed automatically by the installer (the Download Online Help screen does not appear in such a case).

Or copy the file into the Jalopy settings directory, e.g. on a typical Windows XP system to C:\Documents and Settings\John Doo\.jalopy\1.9.3\jalopy-help-1.9.3.jar.

Step 6: Settings Import (optional)

In case an older Jalopy release could be found on your machine, the wizard lets you choose whether the settings of the prior version should be imported during installation.

Figure 1.9. Setup Wizard Import Settings

Select the Yes, import my settings option to have your settings imported or No, ignore any prior settings to start with the defaults. Additionally, you can control whether your prior settings should be deleted or kept. Select Yes, delete any prior settings to delete your existing settings. Or choose No, keep any prior settings to leave any present settings untouched.

Step 7: Configure Plug-in Defaults

The installer lets you pre-configure some IDE plug-in preferences, to possibly eliminate the need for client configuration.

Figure 1.10. Plug-in Defaults Screen

When using Jalopy in a team, it is often mandatory to share a common code convention to achieve a consistent code layout style. There are multiple ways to achieve this goal, but the best and most convenient approach is to embedd this information right into the IDE plug-ins. This way developers must not know nor care how to configure Jalopy—it will automatically pick up its settings upon first installation. You can of course adjust the defaults later using the IDE preferences dialog.

To specify a shared code convention, select the Yes, always synchronize with the following code convention radio button and enter the path of the shared code convention. This can either be a file system path or a web url.

By default, Jalopy checks the specified settings file for changes each time it is about to format. This can be prohibitive when the code convention sits on a server without fast network access. To avoid long delays in such situations, you can enable local caching. Jalopy then only checks once per day for changes. To enable local caching, select the Yes, enable the local cache and only synchronize once per day radio button.

In order to keep keep track of updates, the IDE plug-in can notify about the avalailibilty of new releases. When a new release becomes available, they display a notification dialog that provides access to the release notes. If you don't want to be notified about updates, select the No, don't check for updates radio button.

Step 8: Confirmation

When all configuration is done, the installation summary dialog is displayed. Please review your choices and press the Install button to start the installation.

Figure 1.11. Ready Screen

Step 9: Installation

Once the insallation has started, a progress dialog informs you about the pending installation steps.

Figure 1.12. Progress Screen

The installation process might take a while, please be patient until the installer has finished updating your system. Especially the installation of the Eclipse plug-in can be very time consuming on big installations.

Step 9: Results

When installation has been finished, the finish screen appears.

Figure 1.13. Finish Screen

You can press the Show Report to review the installation log. In case something should have went wrong during the installation, please provide support with this log information. Press the Finish button to close the setup wizard.