© Manuel D. Rossetti This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 543 Howard Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

How to get started using the JSL

I have used both (www.eclipse.org) and Netbeans (www.netbeans.org) in my work with the JSL. Both are fine integrated development environments (IDEs). If you are well versed enough to have a preference between the IDEs, then you probably do not need this document. Thus, these instructions are based on using NetBeans, since this is the IDE that I am currently using.

Downloading and Installing IDE and Related Software

• Go to www..org and download the latest release of NetBeans that is appropriate for your . The SE version is sufficient to get started. You shouldn’t need the bundled server versions unless you want to work with those services. Follow the on screen installation procedures. If you don’t have Java, the appropriate version will also be installed. • I use a code versioning software program called Git. Git is free and open source. It helps in controlling the versions of software. Support for Git is built into NetBeans, provided you have installed Git on your system. Download and install the version of Git that is appropriate for your operating system. • The for the JSL is available at a project on GitHub (https://www.github.com/rossetti/JSL) GitHub provide free (and fee based) hosting services for open source software projects. • If you are a University of Arkansas student, you can also get access to the JSL via the UA’s Gitlab installation (https://git.uark.edu/users/sign_in) . The URL for the JSL project on Gitlab is (https://git.uark.edu/rossetti/JSL-Release) . The UA Gitlab is where I perform active development on the JSL. Changes to the JSL are eventually pushed to (https://github.com/rossetti/JSL)

Downloading the JSL

Use the Clone or download functionality of Git to download the JSL source and documentation as shown in the figure on the next page. More sophisticated users can use Git within NetBeans or their normal Git workflow to download the software. Unzipping the folder provides the files shown here:

1 © Manuel D. Rossetti This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 543 Howard Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

The JSL download includes three NetBeans projects.

• JSLCore – This is the main JSL . It includes the source code and a few examples. The JSLCore. file found in the /dist folder within the NetBeans project is the JAR file that can be added to other NetBean’s files to create NetBean’s projects that can access the JSL libraries. • JSLExamples – This NetBeans project as a bunch of examples of various models that illustrate most of the functionality of the JSL • JSLTesting – This NetBeans project has some Junit and other test programs that can be used for development and test. It is rather primitive at this stage. • Creating a NetBeans project with the JSL as a library

In many situations you just want to use the JSL with your NetBeans project and you don’t care about the source. There are many ways to accomplish this.

• Make a NetBeans project based on another project • Make a NetBeans project based on a library or JAR file

Go to New Project and choose the type of Java project that you want. Unless you are making a , I would suggest sticking with Java Class Library.

2 © Manuel D. Rossetti This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 543 Howard Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

Give your project a name and location. Then, click finish. A new NetBeans project will be created.

Go to the Libraries and right-click to get the context menu for adding a library type.

3 © Manuel D. Rossetti This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 543 Howard Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

If you choose Add Project you can add another NetBeans project as a library and your project will have access to the other project. Select the project and then choose “Add Project JAR files”. The advantage here is if you change something in the project that you are linking to, those changes will be available to your new project.

If you choose add JAR/Folder you can add just the JAR file. In this case you need to find the JSL JAR file within the JSLCore Project’s dist directory. You have the option of copying the file to the new project or to linking to the file. Copying the file allows you to move your project around without any problems. Linking just points to the file. Linking’s advantage is if the JAR in the dist directory is regenerated, then the new project will have access to the changes. For simplicity, I recommend just copying the JSLCore.jar file.

4 © Manuel D. Rossetti This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 543 Howard Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

After you have added the project as a library or added the JAR file, you can access the classes within the JSL within your NetBeans project.

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