Binary Edition

The latest stable version of DewDrop is available from Sourceforge.net's DewDrop project files page.

Source Edition

If you prefer the source edition, you can download the source for the latest DewDrop release from Sourceforge.net's DewDrop project files page also. The file you will need to download will be named dewdrop-<version>.src.zip. If you prefer living on the edge, you can access the code anonymously as it is being developed via CVS. If you're not familiar with CVS, you may learn how to use it by reading Sourceforge.net's DewDrop CVS summary page. If you are already fairly familiary with CVS, here are the CVS commands to access anonymously:

cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/dewdrop login

cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/dewdrop co dewdrop

See the section Building DewDrop on how to build DewDrop from the source code. If you're just curious, you can also browse DewDrop's CVS files online.

DewDrop has been used successfully on many platforms, including Linux, commercial flavors of Unix such as Solaris and HP-UX, Windows 9x and NT, Novell Netware 6 and MacOS X.

The Binary distribution of DewDrop already has all the dependent files you need to run DewDrop, so you won't need to download any extra files. If you're curious, all external dependencies can be found in the dewdrop installation's lib/ext directory.

If you build DewDrop from scratch, you must have a version 1.4 or better JDK (not just a JRE) installed on your system, with the corresponding JAVA_HOME environment variable set. Only Sun's J2SE JDK has been tested for use when compiling DewDrop. IBM's Jikes compiler or Microsoft's JDK may work, but there are no guarantees. Also, DewDrop uses the incredible Ant build tool as its build management system, and so Ant must also be installed, with the ANT_HOME environment variable set.

The binary distribution of DewDrop consists of the following directory layout:

dewdrop 
  +--- bin // contains launcher/executable scripts
  | 
  +--- etc // database configuration files and scripts 
  | 
  +--- lib // contains DewDrop jars
      +--- ext //contains 3rd party dependency jars
 

Only the bin, etc, and lib directories (and their subdirectories) are required to run DewDrop. To install DewDrop, choose a directory and copy the distribution file there. This directory will be known as DEWDROP_HOME.

Windows 95, Windows 98 & Windows ME Note:

On these systems, the script used to launch DewDrop will have problems if DEWDROP_HOME is a long filename (i.e. a filename which is not of the format known as "8.3"). This is due to limitations in the OS's handling of the "for" batch-file statement. It is recommended, therefore, that DewDrop be installed in a short, 8.3 path, such as C:\dewdrop.
On these systems you will also need to configure more environment space to cater for the environment variables used in the DewDrop lauch script. To do this, you will need to add or update the following line in the config.sys file:

shell=c:\command.com c:\ /p /e:32768

Setup

Before you can run DewDrop there is some additional set up you will need to do:

• Set the DEWDROP_HOME environment variable to the directory where you installed DewDrop. On some operating systems the dewdrop wrapper scripts can guess DEWDROP_HOME (Unix dialects and Windows NT/2000) - but it is better to not rely on this behavior.
• Add the DEWDROP_HOME/bin directory to your PATH environment variable.

Note: Do not install DewDrop's dewdrop.jar file into the lib/ext directory of the JDK/JRE. DewDrop is an application, while the extension directory is intended for JDK extensions. In particular there are security restrictions on the classes which may be loaded by an extension.

Windows

Assume DewDrop is installed in C:\dewdrop. The following sets up the environment:

set DEWDROP_HOME=C:\dewdrop
set JAVA_HOME=C:\jdk1.3.1
set PATH=%PATH%;%DEWDROP_HOME%\bin

Unix (bash)

Assume DewDrop is installed in /usr/local/dewdrop. The following sets up the environment:

export DEWDROP_HOME=/usr/local/dewdrop
export JAVA_HOME=/usr/local/jdk-1.4.1
export PATH=${PATH}:${DEWDROP_HOME}/bin

Unix (csh)

setenv DEWDROP_HOME /usr/local/dewdrop
setenv JAVA_HOME /usr/local/jdk-1.3.1
set path=( $path $DEWDROP_HOME/bin )