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3. Getting Started

This chapter describes what the hardware and software requirements are to run MUIbase on your computer, the procedure for installing and updating MUIbase, and how to start and quit MUIbase.

3.1 Installing MUIbase on Windows  32bit Windows 2000, XP, Vista.
3.2 Installing MUIbase on Mac OS  Mac OS X, Tiger and Leopard.
3.3 Installing MUIbase on Linux  i386 Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, Mandriva, ...
3.4 Installing MUIbase on Amiga  Amiga OS3, UAE, Amiga OS4, MorphOS.
3.5 Updating from a previous version  Already have installed MUIbase?
3.6 Starting MUIbase  From desktop or command line interface.
3.7 Quitting MUIbase  When you are done.
3.8 Filename conventions  Environment variables and assign names.


3.1 Installing MUIbase on Windows

MUIbase for Windows runs on Intel 386 compatible computers that use the 32bit versions of Windows 2000, Windows XP or Windows Vista. MUIbase requires the GTK+ libraries for Windows to be installed on your system. Usually, these libraries are not present in most Windows installations unless you have installed other software that also requires them, e.g. Gimp. The hard disk space required for MUIbase is moderate (less than 10MB).

The MUIbase installer is distributed as a Windows executable, e.g. `MUIbase-2.9-setup.exe' which you can download from the MUIbase home page http://muibase.sourceforge.net. When running the installer, your system will first be checked for the necessary GTK+ libraries. In case they cannot be found on your computer, the installer prompts a message allowing to download and install these libraries from the Internet. The installer then resumes to installing MUIbase where you will be asked several options about where to install MUIbase and which configuration to use. In case you have a previous MUIbase version installed on your computer, the installation procedure allows to update it to the new version.

After a successful installation your Windows `Start' menu should contain a new entry for launching MUIbase. You can now remove the MUIbase installer as it is no longer needed.


3.2 Installing MUIbase on Mac OS

MUIbase for Mac OS supports Mac OS X Tiger (10.4) and Mac OS X Leopard (10.5). The software is distributed as universal binaries containing both, a PowerPC and an Intel version.

A disk image of MUIbase, e.g. `MUIbase-2.9.dmg' can be downloaded from the MUIbase home page http://muibase.sourceforge.net. After downloading and opening the image, drag and drop `MUIbase.app' into your computer's `Applications' folder. This installs MUIbase and all necessary libraries including GTK+ on your system.

The default appearance of MUIbase for Mac OS uses the default GTK engine. If you rather prefer a more native look and feel then rename the file `gtkrc-quartz' in directory `MUIbase.app/Contents/Resources/etc/gtk-2.0' into `gtkrc' and restart MUIbase.

Note that this setting is experimental and the appearance of some GUI elements may be broken.


3.3 Installing MUIbase on Linux

You can install and run MUIbase on an Intel 386 compatible computer running the Linux operating system. Your system should have a recent X11 server and GTK+ (version 2.6 or higher) installed. Required hard disk space is moderate (less then 10MB).

MUIbase for i386 Linux is distributed both, as a Debian package (e.g. `muibase_2.9_i386.deb' for Ubuntu or Debian) and as an RPM archive (e.g. `MUIbase-2.9-i386.rpm' for Fedora or Mandriva). Both versions can be downloaded from the MUIbase home page http://muibase.sourceforge.net.

Usually MUIbase installs or updates itself automatically after downloading it on your computer. In case the installation process does not start automatically, the following commands executed as super user (root) in a command shell install or update MUIbase on a Debian-based Linux computer:

 
dpkg --install muibase.deb
where muibase.deb is the downloaded MUIbase Debian package.

On a Redhat-based system (RPM), the commands are:

 
rpm -Uvh MUIbase.rpm
where MUIbase.rpm is the downloaded RPM archive.

After a successful installation you should see a new menu item in the `Applications - Office' menu tree of your (Gnome or KDE) desktop. At this time the downloaded archive is no longer necessary and can be removed.


3.4 Installing MUIbase on Amiga

MUIbase for Amiga runs on Amiga OS version 3.0 or higher and requires an 68020 processor or better. Furthermore, MUI version 3.8 or higher must be present on your system. A minimum of 4MB RAM and 10MB of free hard disk space are needed. The m68k binary of MUIbase for Amiga has been reported to run stable on UAE, MorphOS and Amiga OS4. PowerPC binaries for MorphOS and Amiga OS4 are also available as part of the distributed archive. A seprate distribution contains an AROS version.

MUIbase is distributed as an lha archive, e.g. `MUIbase-2.9.lha' and can be downloaded from the MUIbase home page http://muibase.sourceforge.net. In order to install MUIbase on your computer unpack this archive to a temporary directory. Do not unpack it to the target directory!

Double click the MUIbase installer script `Install-MUIbase' and follow its instructions. The script asks for a directory where the software should be copied to. Do not enter the directory where you have unpacked the MUIbase archive to. The script is also capable of updating an existing MUIbase installation by entering the directory where you previously installed MUIbase.

After successful installation you will find a (new) drawer on your system containing the MUIbase program along with all necessary files and some sample projects. In addition an assign `MUIbase:' referring to this drawer has been added to your system file `S:User-Startup'. It is safe to remove the lha archive and the temporary files as they are no longer needed.


3.5 Updating from a Previous Version

When installing MUIbase, you can upgrade from a previous version of MUIbase or reinstall it as described above. During the new installation, all necessary files are replaced by new ones. This includes the sample projects in the `Demos' directory. It is therefore not recommended to place your own projects into this directory nor to use any of the sample projects for managing your own data as they are overwritten when reinstalling or upgrading MUIbase.

The recommended way to manage your own projects is to place them into a separate directory independent of the MUIbase installation directory.


3.6 Starting MUIbase

MUIbase can be started either from your graphical environment or from a command shell. On Windows you find MUIbase under the `Start' menu. On Mac OS, you launch MUIbase using `Finder' from the `Applications' directory. If you are running Gnome or KDE on Linux, you can start MUIbase by choosing the corresponding item from the `Applications - Office' menu. On the Workbench (Amiga) you double click the MUIbase icon or the icon of a MUIbase project which is then automatically loaded after starting MUIbase (you can also select several MUIbase projects by shift clicking them and double clicking the last one).

When starting MUIbase from a command shell on Windows, Linux or Amiga you can include command line arguments and optional projects to load. There are two basic ways to start MUIbase from a command shell:

 
MUIbase [project1 ...]
MUIbase -n
The first form starts MUIbase and loads the optional projects specified by their filenames project1 .... The second form starts MUIbase without graphical user interface. This can be useful for running MUIbase as a server in the background and accessing it through its external interface (e.g. ARexx on Amiga, see ARexx interface).


3.7 Quitting MUIbase

To quit MUIbase select menu item `Project - Quit' or close all opened projects.


3.8 Filename Conventions on Windows, Mac OS and Linux

MUIbase for Windows, Mac OS and Linux has a few special conventions for filenames that are usually not found in other software on those systems.

When MUIbase is starting, an environment variable `MUIbase' is set referring to the installation directory of MUIbase. On Windows this is the directory specified during the software installation. On Mac OS, it is directory `/Applications/MUIbase.app/Contents/Resources/share/MUIbase'. On Linux, it is directory `/usr/share/MUIbase'.

When interpreting filenames (either entered by the user or the filenames present in this documentation) a filename is examined for the occurrence of environment variables. If a filename contains a dollar sign `$' then the characters following it until the first non-alpha-numeric character are interpreted as an environment variable and, if the environment variable is set, the part of the filename is replaced by the contents of the environment variable (otherwise the part of the filename is left unchanged including the `$' sign). You can use parentheses around the environment variable if it contains non-alpha-numeric characters. For example `$HOME/data' expands to the path where `$HOME' has been replaced with the path name of your home directory.

Furthermore, Amiga-style `assign names' are handled in the following way. If a filename contains a colon `:' then everything before the colon is treated like an environment variable (called `assign name') and is replaced by its contents if the environment variable is set. `Assign names' should be at least 2 characters in length, in order to distinguish them from drive letters on Windows.

These conventions allow, for example, to refer to the movie sample database inside the MUIbase installation directory as `MUIbase:demos/Movie.mb'.

Another example is when you set an environment variable, say `EXTERNAL_DATA', referring to the directory where you store external data like images, etc. of one of your projects. You can then access data inside this directory through `EXTERNAL_DATA:some-file' and store such filenames in the database project.


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