Installing the software

Installing the software needed to run this tutorial is fairly straight-forward. You will need to download and install Java, Tcl, and Tcl Blend/Jacl, as well as the tutorial examples. Some of the more complex examples will require additional software to be installed to be run, which will described in the relevant sections.

The links to the download sites are:

These are the latest stable releases as of early August 1998, and the versions we will use in the tutorial.

Note: When you download the Java Development Kit, be sure to also download (and unzip) the JDK documentation, as it is not included with the main JDK distribution. Although the documentation is online at Sun (and we've provided links to Java classes that we've referred to directly, you'll probably find it useful to have a local copy of the documentation.

Following are instructions for Windows NT and Solaris. We have not tested the tutorial ourselves under Windows 95 or 98, but it should work. (One of our beta testers reported that Windows 95 had to be restarted after installing Tcl Blend, and then everything worked fine.) We have not tested Tcl Blend under other UNIX platforms, although it should be possible to port it -- see Christopher's notes on Ports to Other Platforms. Jacl should still work on any platform that you can get Java running on, since it does not require any native code.

Windows NT instructions

  1. Download and install the following.
    • JDK 1.1 for Windows. This is a binary release, so installation is straight-forward. When you're done, add the directory c:\jdk1.1.6\bin (or the equivalent) to your PATH.
    • Tcl/Tk 8.0 for Windows. Run the installer -- installation is straight-forward. If you want to be able to run Tcl from a command shell (rather than clicking on icons), add c:\tcl\bin (or the equivalent) to your path. Because the binaries are named wish80 and tclsh80, you might like to make shortcuts to them called wish and tclsh.
    • Tcl Blend and Jacl version 1.0. Again, installation is straight-forward. The installer will look for the Tcl installation, and add Tcl Blend to the appropriate directory.

    See Christopher's notes for more detailed instructions:

    If you have problems, go here:

  2. Download the tutorial examples:
  3. Unzip the downloaded file in a temporary directory. You will see two directories:
    • javatute\ is the Tcl package containing the Tcl code used in the tutorial.
    • tutorial\ is the Java package containing the Java classes used in the tutorial.
  4. Tell Tcl where to find the Tcl package named "javatute". The simplest way to do this is to copy the javatute\ directory into the library directory that Tcl loads at startup. To see where this is, start tclsh and type 
      file dirname [info library]
  5. Move the tutorial directory somewhere suitable, such as c:\java\tutorial. (We won't be using this code until later sections of the tutorial.)

Solaris instructions

  1. If you don't already have them, download and install Java, Tcl/Tk, and Tcl Blend and Jacl. See Christopher's notes:

    If you have problems, go here:

  2. Download the tutorial examples:
  3. Unpack the downloaded file in a temporary directory: 
      gzcat javatute.tar.gz | tar -xf -

    You will see two directories:

    • javatute/ is the Tcl package containing the Tcl code used in the tutorial.
    • tutorial/ is the Java package containing the Java classes used in the tutorial.
  4. Tell Tcl where to find the Tcl package named "javatute". The simplest way to do this is to create the files ~/.tclshrc and ~/.wishrc, and add the directory to the auto-load path. (These files are sourced by tclsh and wish respectively when starting up.) Both of these files will need a line like this: 
      lappend auto_path /users/johnr/tcl/javatute
  5. Move the tutorial directory somewhere suitable, such as /users/johnr/java/tutorial. (We won't be using this code until later sections of the tutorial.)


Top: Tcl and Java Programming: Practice and Pitfalls Previous: Background Up: Introduction

Comments?