DrJava Releases for the Rice Community

Note for Rice Users Fall 2006: The IT department seems to have configured its network server for the ADRICE domain improperly, preventing DrJava to access its preferences file in the user's home directory (typically U:\pcprofile\.drjava). This prevents DrJava from saving its preferences and under some circumstances even prevents it from starting. Until the IT department fixes this problem, here is a work-around:

1. Download the latest version of DrJava as a jar file (drjava-stable-20060821-1502 or later)
2. Save the file to a directory on the computer's local drive, i.e. C:\ not somewhere on U:\
3. Open a command shell by clicking on the "Start" button, selecting "Run...", typing in "cmd" in the edit field, and pressing "OK".
4. Change into the directory where you saved the DrJava jar file. Example: If you saved it to C:\Temp, then you would type in the following commands in the command shell, each followed by pressing the "return" key:
   • C:
   • cd \Temp
5. Now you're in the directory with the DrJava jar file and you can run it. However, because of the IT department problems, you have to start it differently and specify an alternate preferences file using the -config switch. This is how you do it:
   • java -jar drjava.jar -config drjava.cfg
6. Depending on the name of the DrJava version you downloaded, you may have to change the name of the DrJava jar file, e.g. from drjava.jar to drjava-stable-20060821-1502.jar.
7. You should also make sure that the alternate preferences file, in this example drjava.cfg, does not initially exist. Just choose a name that is not in use. That will make DrJava start out with everything at the default preferences. All changes to the preferences will be saved to that file.
8. When you start DrJava again later and want to re-use the preferences from the last execution, make sure to start from the same directory and specify the same alternate preferences file, in this example drjava.cfg. That will make DrJava re-load the preferences you saved when you last quit DrJava.
9. If you need any help while the IT department resolves this problem, please let us know.