Vergil Frequently Asked Questions

Below are some answers to frequently asked questions about vergil. This page contains links to documents about Vergil internals and infrastructure.

Contents

  • 1. General
  • 1.1 What Is Vergil?
  • 1.2 How do I pronounce 'vergil'?
  • 1.3 Isn't the guy's name 'Virgil'?
  • 1.4 What is the copyright?
  • 1.5 How do I contact the authors?
  • 1.6 Is there a mailing list?
  • 2. Installation questions
  • 2.1 How do I download vergil?
  • 2.2 What platforms does vergil run under?
  • 2.3 What do I need to Install Vergil?
  • 2.4 Troubleshooting
  • 2.5 Is there a bug list?
  • 3. How do I . . .

    • 1. General

    1.1 What Is Vergil?
    Vergil is an extensible framework for developing component-based design applications. Vergil can be used in applets and applications. The top-level Vergil page describes Vergil further.
    1.2 How do I pronounce 'vergil'?
    verge-ill.
    1.3 Isn't the guy's name 'Virgil'?
    In Latin, the author's name was Publius Vergilius Maro. English translations seems to be split about an accepted spelling. If you are interested in the author, try www.virgil.org for more information about him. The name was chosen as a pseudo-acronym for "Visual Editing Graphical Interactive Language".
    1.4 What is the copyright?
    Vergil is released under the fairly liberal UC Berkeley copyright, see copyright.txt. Most files have the copyright at the top.

    Vergil is free for academic and commercial use. You an incorporate it into products, but you need to follow the instructions in the copyright notice.

    This copyright is based on the Tcl copyright that was used when Prof. Ousterhout was developing Tcl here at UC Berkeley. This copyright was also used in Ptolemy Classic, which has been used in commercial products.

    1.5 How do I contact the authors?
    The primary author of Vergil is Stephen Neuendorffer. You can contact the author at neuendor@ptolemy.eecs.berkeley.edu
    1.6 Is there a mailing list?
    We have an internal mailing list ptguidevel for people actively developing and contributing to Vergil. There is currently no external mailing list specifically for Vergil, however Vergil questions and answers can be found on the regular Ptolemy mailing lists.

    2. Installation questions

    2.1 How do I download Vergil?
    http://ptolemy.eecs.berkeley.edu/java/vergil.htm has links to the tar and zip files.
    2.2 What platforms does Vergil run under?
    Vergil was developed under JDK1.2.2 and JDK1.3. We recommend JDK1.3 over JDK1.2. Vergil requires Java 2 and Swing.

    The Java Plug-in allows JDK1.1 browsers under Windows to run JDK1.3 applets.

    2.3 What do I need to Install Vergil?
    To run Vergil either in standalone mode or within a browser, you will need the Java Runtime Environment (JRE).
    To compile Java files, you will need the Java Development Kit (JDK).
    Both the JRE and the JDK may be downloaded from http://www.javasoft.com.

    Vergil uses Diva, and a jar file of the Diva class files is included in the installation.

    2.4 Troubleshooting
    The Vergil Troubleshooting guide has a few hints.

    You might find useful information on the Vergil homepage at http://ptolemy.eecs.berkeley.edu/java/vergil.

    If you are really stumped, you can send mail to neuendor@ptolemy.eecs.berkeley.edu. Your mail should include:

    1. What version of Vergil you are running.
    2. What platform you are running under (Solaris, Windows etc.)
    3. Exactly how to reproduce the bug.
    Please realize that due to the extensible nature of Vergil, bugs that appear when using Vergil are often bugs in other related software.
    2.5 Is there a bug list?
    See The Ptolemy II Release Notes

    Last Updated: $Date: 2006/05/11 16:40:18 $