Describes the steps necessary to install a Jalopy release.
Jalopy will run on any Pentium-class machine with a minimum of 256 MB RAM. You may succeed with less, but it’s not recommended for a good user experience. Depending on your options, you need between 10-20 MB free disk space for the installation files. During runtime, additional space is required for settings, caches and backup, typically between 5-50 MB, but this again depends on your project size and setup.
The supported operating systems are: Linux, Mac OS X (x86 only), Solaris, Unix, Windows XP or later. Jalopy should run on all platforms that provide a suitable Java VM.
Jalopy requires a properly configured Java JDK version 1.4 or later on your system. We recommend to use a more recent version for best performance.
Installation should be preferably performed below the user directory, when possible. If you should need to install into a different target directory, please make sure that the setup wizard is invoked with sufficient user privileges, because it may need to create directories below certain application folders that might not be accessible as normal user.
If you choose to install any of the provided IDE plug-ins, you must close any running target application(s) prior to installation. Otherwise setup may fail, because necessary files cannot be installed or obsolete files cannot be removed.
Download Online Help
During installation you will be asked whether you want to download and install
the online help for the preferences dialog. If 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. 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.
You can find more information about the Jalopy settings directory in Section 2.1, “Overview”.
The setup wizard will install the online help always into the Jalopy settings directory as
described above. But if you’re doing a custom installation, because you want the software
to be available for all your developers without requiring them to do any extra work on
their client machines, you can place the file into the same directory where the binaries
have been installed, e.g. if the software was installed into
C:\Program Files\jalopy,
the binaries can be found in
C:\Program Files\jalopy\lib.
Just copy the help file into this directory and it will be available to all users of the
binary.
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 Section 1.4, “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.
Please note that there is a common bug with Microsoft Internet Explorer that sometimes renames the provided JAR file to one with the .zip extension. If the downloaded file ends with .zip, simply rename the extension to make the installer work.
Step 2: Welcome
After you’ve invoked the setup wizard, the welcome screen will appear shortly.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The wizard verifies your selection and ensures valid target directories. If validation should fail, a dialog pops up to inform you about the situation.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Please note that the settings of the Jalopy Open Source versions up to 1.0b11 are always removed during installation. If you want to keep such settings, make a backup of your settings directory before you start the setup routine. Detailed information about the Jalopy settings system can be found in Chapter 2, Configuration.
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.
The specified defaults only apply for the Eclipse, IDEA, JBuilder, JDevelper, jEdit and NetBeans plug-ins. You still have to configure the headless plug-ins as usual, which is more appropriate for their use cases.
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.
Please note that installation cannot be canceled once started. You should make sure that you’ve selected all desired features and configured the target locations correctly before you start the installation. You can of course, re-run the installer at any time in case you need to perform installation with different settings. If you think that you’ve made a wrong choice during the information gathering, press the Back button to flip through the pages and review your settings.
Step 9: Installation
Once the insallation has started, a progress dialog informs you about the pending installation steps.
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.
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.
The executable JAR file contains built-in support for silent (unattended) installation. A normal wizard install guides the user through different graphical dialog boxes and expects some input. However, a silent install does not prompt the user for input. Instead it receives the required setup data from a configuration driver file that provides the information the user would otherwise enter as responses to dialog boxes.
The setup configuration driver file uses the standard java.util.Properties format. It consists of key/value pairs representing the data entries. Performing a wizard install automatically creates (or updates) a configuration driver file in the Jalopy settings directory that reflects the information given during the last setup session.
To perform a silent install, open a shell and type
% java -jar jalopy-setup-1.9.3_156.jar --silent
at the command line. This will perform installation with the data gathered from your last installation session. But the installer supports a few more options to control the setup process. These are described below.
Options
Table 1.1. Install Wizard command-line options
| Option | Long Option | Arguments | Description | Since |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| -c | --config | <filepath> |
Specifies the absolute path to the setup configuration driver file to use for
the installation, e.g.
/home/John Doo/tools/jalopy-install.ini. When omitted,
the settings of the last installation run will be used when available
| 1.4 |
| -h | --help | Displays a short help | 1.4 | |
| -l | --log | Specifies the directory where the log file should be written. When omitted, the log file is stored in the Jalopy settings directory (Section 2.1, “Overview”) | 1.4 | |
| -s | --silent | Performs silent install | 1.4 | |
| --update-center | Creates a NetBeans update center | 1.9.2 | ||
| --update-site | Creates an Eclipse update site | 1.9.2 |
Below you find an annotated sample configuration driver file, that explains all available keys and the possible values.
Example 1.1. Sample configuration driver file
#Jalopy installation data #Fri Dec 03 09:14:37 CET 2004delete.settings=false import.settings=false
download.help=true
install.ant=true install.ant.dir=/Home/John Doo/Applications/ant-1.7.1
install.console=true install.console.dir=/Home/John Doo/Applications/jalopy install.eclipse=true install.eclipse.dir=/Home/John Doo/Applications/eclipse-3.4.2 install.idea=true install.idea.dir=/Home/John Doo/Applications/idea-8.0 install.jdeveloper=true install.jdeveloper.dir=/Home/John Doo/Applications/jdeveloper-11g install.jedit=true install.jedit.dir=/Home/John Doo/Applications/jedit-4.3 install.maven=true install.maven.dir=/Home/John Doo/.m2 install.netbeans=true install.netbeans.dir=/Home/John Doo/Applications/netbeans-6.5
| Header comment that contains the last modification date of the file |
| delete.settings = true|false Indicates wether the settings of a prior version should be removed. “false” to keep prior settings, “true” to remove them |
| import.settings = true|false Indicates wether the settings of a prior version should be imported. “false” to ignore prior settings, “true” to import them |
| install.[appKey] = true|false Indicates wether the specified application plug-in should be installed. “false” means that the plug-in won’t be installed, “true” installs the plug-in. The valid appKeys are ant, console, eclipse, idea, idea3.x, jbuilder, jdeveloper, jbuilder, jedit, netbeans, netbeans3.4. |
| install.[appKey].dir = absolute file path Specifies the absolute file path of the root application directory. The file path is stored in platform notation. |
It is often possible to install Jalopy manually yoursef, but this might require certain non-trivial tasks, especially for the IDE plug-ins. It is therefore recommended to at least initially use the installer to perform installation on a test system and extract the necessary information for your custom deployment procedure. Please contact support if you need any specific assistance.
Wizard installation is mandatory with the trial version