Pliny Workbench with WordHoard

3.1 Installing Pliny 1.2.0 WorkBench

This version of Pliny (1.2.0) is called Pliny WorkBench, and is somewhat experimental, and it will almost certainly still contain bugs. Please report them to me if you find any. Beyond bug reporting, however, I'd be very glad to hear about your reaction to Pliny Workbench. There are bound to be improvements to the way Pliny works that you might suggest. Please email me at john.bradley@kcl.ac.uk if you have any ideas.

Pliny runs as a set of plugins inside a computer program called Eclipse: http://www.eclipse.org. There are currently two ways to install Pliny to try it out:

  • Standalone: If you are using either a Windows or Macintosh machine then we have versions that you can install that allows Pliny to run on its own, needing only a suitable version of Java. The installatioin processes differ between the Macintosh and Windows (because the established ways to install applications differs for the two systems), so be sure you are reading the instructions for your machine. Setting up Pliny on Windows is described here, and for the Macintosh here.
  • From within Eclipse If you are currently an Eclipse user and have Eclipse (version 3.6 or more recent) installed on your computer, you might be able to make it run there. Please contact me via email if you are interested in running it this way.

Installing Pliny Workbench into Windows

These are the instructions for installing Pliny Workbench on a Windows machine. Please see the instructions in the next section for installing it on the Macintosh.

Installing Java

Pliny requires the Java Runtime Environment (version 1.5 or higher) to run under Windows. If you already have a suitable version of Java installed on your computer skip this step. To install Java:

  1. Open your web browser,
  2. Enter the following URL into the address field: http://www.java.com
  3. Click on Free Java Download, and
  4. Follow the installation instructions.

This will load the current version of Java which at the time of writing was 1.6.0.

Installing Pliny Workbench

Pliny workbench has been packaged using the IzPack installer. To install Pliny first you must fetch the installer bundle, then you must run the installer to set up Pliny for you:

  1. Click here (http://pliny.cch.kcl.ac.uk/matc/pliny-inst-1.2.0.jar) to fetch the Pliny installer, and store it on your computer.
  2. Locate the installer and double-click on it to start it up. The installer will appear as a wizard, with a sequence of screens to go through. Near the end of the installation is a screen for "Shortcuts". We recommend that you choose the option to create a short-cut on your desktop -- this will make it easy to start Pliny whenever you wish to use it.

    Note that the installer will want to install Pliny Workbench in the folder c:/Pliny. This is not the standard place for software on Windows machines, nevertheless, please allow it to install there anyway, since it avoids problems in Vista and Windows 7 if you wish to install additional plugins.

  3. After the IzPack installer is completed you will find a Pliny icon under Start/All Programs, and (if you requested it) on the desktop. When you start Pliny the first time it will take somewhat longer to start than usual since there will be some first-time setting up that it has to do. Please be patient.
  4. The first time you start Pliny it will start up its Welcome Screen which will in turn point you to its own tutorial materials. You will probably find that Pliny is quite unlike other software you have used before, and we strongly suggest that you work through the tutorials provided to help you get started using it. The Welcome screen will point you to good starting points among them. You can close the Welcome screen to start using Pliny whenever you are ready, and you can subsequently bring the welcome screen back by choosing help/welcome from the menu bar. Alternatively, all the help material (including the starting tutorials mentioned on the welcome screen) are available under help/help contents from the menu bar.

There is an email discussion list for Pliny users. If you would like to join it, please visit https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/pliny-users.

Installing Pliny Workbench on the Macintosh

The packaging of Pliny Workbench for the Macintosh would benefit from some further work. Please contact me at john.bradley@kcl.ac.uk if you run into problems. It has been tested, albeit so far only to a very limited extent, and only runs under OS X, up to an including the latest "Snow-Leopard" release. Users of 64bit machines using Java 1.6, however, might have problems. Please contact John Bradley (at john.bradley@kcl.ac.uk) if you are having difficulties.

Note: Pliny seems to trigger a bug in the Eclipse/p2 component that, on the Macintosh, causes the code to erase a key control file the first time it runs so that it will then not be able to start successfully the next time. We are still hopeful that at some point this bug will be fixed, but at present you need to lock one of the control files after the software has been set up, and before it is run so that this file cannot be inadvertently deleted by this bug.

Installing Java

Pliny requires the Java Runtime Environment (on the Macintosh, version 1.5.0 or higher). If you already have a suitable version of Java installed on your computer skip this step. To install Java:

  1. Open your web browser,
  2. Enter the following URL into the address field: http://www.java.com
  3. Click on Free Java Download, and
  4. Follow the installation instructions.

This will load the current version of Java which at the time of writing was 1.6.0.

Installing Pliny

Pliny has been packaged as a Macintosh application:

  1. Click here (http://pliny.cch.kcl.ac.uk/pliny-app-1.2.0.tar.gz) to fetch the Pliny installer, and store it on your computer.
  2. Double click on the archive file to unpack it.
  3. The unpacking process will generate a folder called Pliny which contains the Pliny application. Drag the entire folder into your machine's Applications folder to install it. The Pliny workbench application is dockable. To add it in the dock drag the Pliny icon you find in the Pliny folder (not the folder itself) to the dock.
  4. Note: Because of what appears to us to be an apparent bug in the Eclipse/p2 software in Pliny that is triggered seemingly only on the Macintosh, you must (before starting Pliny for the first time) locate file "config.ini" that is located in the folder into which Pliny was installed, and inside its configuration folder, and lock it. We apologise for this problem, and we hope that at some point in the near feature this bug will be fixed by the Eclipse team.
  5. After you have locked this file, you can then start Pliny by clicking on the icon in the dock (if you have docked it, or on the Pliny icon in the Pliny folder you added to your machine's Applications folder.
  6. The first time you start Pliny it will start up its Welcome Screen which will in turn point you to its own tutorial materials. You will probably find that Pliny is quite unlike other software you have used before, and we strongly suggest that you work through the tutorials provided to help you get started using it. The Welcome screen will point you to good starting points among them. You can close the Welcome screen to start using Pliny whenever you are ready, and you can subsequently bring the welcome screen back by choosing help/welcome from the menu bar. Alternatively, all the help material (including the starting tutorials mentioned on the welcome screen) are available under help/help contents from the menu bar.

There is an email discussion list for Pliny users. If you would like to join it, please visit https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/pliny-users.

John Bradley
Center for Computing in the Humanities
King's College London