• Installation and setup

    Install

    If Java is installed properly, Eclipse installation is simple on all platforms. Simply decompress (unzip or untar/gz) to the directory where you want Eclipse. Make sure this directory has no spaces in its path, avoid 'My Documents', 'Program Files' which are common on Windows. Preferably use C:\Users\yourName\tools\eclipse. The other caveat is that you should do this as the user who will be running Eclipse. See Can I do a multi-user install of Eclipse? for more info.

    Setup/Running

    To get started, run the "eclipse" executable. This could involve either browsing to it and double-clicking the icon or running it from a command line. If Eclipse can't find your Java VM, see How do I run Eclipse--with the right options? below.

    Ubuntu 9.10(Koala) users: If you have trouble with buttons in Eclipse, read about this fix.

    The first time you run Eclipse, it will prompt you for a "workspace" location. This is where Eclipse will save your configuration and layout and is the default location for projects and their associated files. The default should be fine--unless you are using Windows and the default is on a network share path. (ACL2 does not understand network share paths.) In that case you should "Map network drive" in Windows and use a path on that drive.

    If you get a welcome window, you can click the "Go to workbench" icon to get to the Eclipse "workbench".

    Plugin & Image

    Using the Eclipse Updater

    We recommend installing the plugin via Eclipse's update mechanism, so that new revisions of the plugin can be installed quickly.

    In Eclipse version >= 3.5

    In the future, to update to the latest version of our Plugin, also go to Help | Software Updates..., but then go to "Installed Software", select ACL2s, and click "Update...". You can also take advantage of Eclipse's ability to automatically check for updates.

    Checking installation

    Once you've restarted Eclipse, test that the plugin is loaded by typing Ctrl+N (Command+N on Mac) in Eclipse to bring up the dialog for selecting a wizard for creating a new file. There should be an ACL2s category with a wizard for "ACL2s/Lisp file". Select that and click "Next >." If the wizard comes up, you are good. If you get an error when trying to open the ACL2s/Lisp wizard, you might be using a version of Java that is too old (see How do I run Eclipse--with the right options? and How do I tell what Java version Eclipse is running under? below, remembering that the Java version needs to be >= 1.5.0). If there is no ACL2s category, Eclipse is not loading the ACL2s plugin, which probably means it was not installed properly or you haven't restarted Eclipse.

    ACL2 outside of Eclipse (optional)

    If you already have ACL2 Version 8.0.0 to 8.0.0, based on GNU Common LISP (GCL), Steel Bank Common Lisp (SBCL), or ClozureCL/OpenMCL, then you can use that with the current version of ACL2s without installing the "ACL2 Image" in Eclipse. In this case, refer to how the plugin locates/runs ACL2. You can also build ACL2 yourself, but the "ACL2 Image" we distribute for supported platforms is prebuilt with standard books precertified. (To use these in Eclipse, install from the update site; otherwise, you can get them from here.) We even have mechanisms to automatically adapt the .cert files to whatever absolute path it's installed into. Our images are based on SBCL for Unix-clone platforms and on CCL for windows. (We would have uniformly liked to use SBCL, because its fast and reliable, but SBCL for Windows lacks interruption--an important feature.)

    Prepackaged Eclipse+ACL2s+ACL2

    For quick and easy install on supported platforms you can simply unpack a prepackaged Eclipse install tree that includes the ACL2s Plugin and ACL2 Image out-of-the-box. You should be able to "Unpack and Go (on to the tutorial)". See http://acl2s.ccs.neu.edu/acl2s/update/pkgs/ for the list of available packages. Choose based on your operating system and architecture.

    Some notes: