DrJava

DrJava is a free IDE developed at Rice University. It is targeted for education and includes a built-in Java interpreter. It is written in Java so it will work on any platform that supports Java. Programming Interactively will support DrJava during the term. You are free to use any other IDE of your choice, but we will not be able to support you. We will consider introducing an industry-standard IDE later in the term (in time for your final projects) if there is interest. The more sophisticated IDE's tend to have lots of features that are great for experienced programmers but likely to hinder the process of learning Java. Thus, we believe that DrJava is the best IDE initially.

Instructions for installation:

• Windows
• Linux

Windows

1. Create a directory on your computer for DrJava. For example, create a DrJava directory inside of C:\Program Files.
2. Go to the DrJava Home Page.
3. Click on the button labelled Download Windows App.
4. Click on the icon in the Download column next to the location you want to download from. Picking a closer location will generally give you a faster download.
5. The File Download dialog appears. Click the Save button. Save the file in the directory you created in the first step.
6. Test that your downloaded file works by just double-clicking on the saved file. This should start up DrJava.
7. Optional: Create a shortcut on your desktop to DrJava.
   • Select the DrJava file.
   • Right-click to get the context menu. Select Create Shortcut.
   • Drag the newly created shortcut to your desktop.
   • Right-click on the shortcut and select Rename.
   • Rename the shortcut to DrJava.

Linux

1. Create a directory in your home directory (or wherever of your choosing) for DrJava. For example, create a drjava directory in your home directory.
2. Go to the DrJava Home Page.
3. Click on the button labelled Download Jar File.
4. Click on the icon in the Download column next to the location you want to download from. Picking a closer location will generally give you a faster download.
5. The Opening drjava-stable-20030822.jar dialog appears. Select Save it to disk and click the OK button.
6. In the file chooser, select your newly created directory to save it in and rename the file to drjava.jar.
7. Test that your downloaded file works opening a Terminal window and changing to the directory you saved the jar file. Type:
   java -jar drjava.jar
   This should start up DrJava.
8. Optional: Create an alias to DrJava.
   • Edit your .bashrc file in your home directory.
   • Add the following line (substituting as appropriate):
     alias drjava='java -jar /home/yourname/drjava/drjava.jar'
   • Try out the new alias (get a new Terminal window or source .bashrc) and type drjava.