Running Wandora

Revision as of 12:59, 28 November 2009

This chapter expects that you have already successfully installed Wandora. Ready to run Wandora application. If your operating system is Windows double click Wandora.exe. Executable simply runs bin/wandora.bat without console window. If you prefer Linux or Unix (including Mac) as your operating system, browse shell scripts in bin and choose the script for your memory footprint.

To get your hands dirty you might want to try example projects found in samples folder. If you are not familiar with the Wandora I suggest you take a look at the Quickstart. Wandora documentation is here.

Wandora's shell scripts

Of course you may launch Wandora directly with startup scripts found in bin. Script execution keeps the console window open and is useful if you face problems running the application or need to adjust the Java environment of application. By default the bin contains five bat and sh scripts. Bat scripts are for Windows based operating systems while sh scripts are used in Linux and Unix type platforms.

• SetClasspath contains all classpath settings of Wandora.
• Wandora sets JRE's memory to 750M and runs Wandora. Wandora.exe launches wandora.bat without console window.
• Wandora-mini sets JRE's memory to 256M and runs Wandora.
• Wandora-large sets JRE's memory to 1G and runs Wandora.
• Wandora-huge sets JRE's memory to 1.4G and runs Wandora.

It is possible that sh scripts are missing execute rights. To make the Wandora.sh script executable use chmod a+x Wandora.sh command in console. If your operating system is not Windows or Linux or Unix you may need to customize scripts before successful execution of Wandora is possible.

Running a shell script with memory settings beyond your physical memory ends up the Java refusing to start the application. If you started the script in Windows with double click the shell window just disappears instantly after double click. You should always use a script with memory settings lower than your physical memory.

Command parameters

Wandora eventually runs with Java command

 java -classpath %WANDORACLASSES% org.wandora.application.Wandora

where %WANDORACLASSES% (or $WANDORACLASSES) is a shell variable defining all class paths for Wandora. Java class org.wandora.application.Wandora builds the main frame of the application. It also supports command parameters. You may attach XTM, LTM, RDF, N3 or WPR (Wandora project file) document name as a command parameter to the run command to load the document at startup. For example

 java -classpath %WANDORACLASSES% org.wandora.application.Wandora my_topicmap.xtm

imports XTM document my_topicmap.xtm to Wandora at startup.

Multiple JREs

Notice the used Java command

 java -classpath %WANDORACLASSES% org.wandora.application.Wandora

contains no path prefix. Command refers to the first Java version found in your computer system. Sometimes, when you have multiple Java virtual machine installations, the command may refer to older (than 6) Java version. This causes the Wandora execution to fail. To check which Java runtime environment the command refers you may use command

 java -version

If Java refers to older version, you should tweak general path settings of you computer or adjust Wandora's startup scripts. You could add absolute path for the Java 6 in front of Java command for example.