INSTALLATION NOTES.TXT

Note for users of previous SNAP installations
=============================================

On WINDOWS
==========

1. Install Panda3d-1.8.0-forSNAP-win32.exe. You should  find it at:
   ftp://sccn.ucsd.edu/pub/software/SNAP/

2. Extract the SNAP distribution.
   You should be able to run the SNAP launcher.py now (by double-clicking it on 
   Windows or making a shortcut with additional command-line arguments). 
   
   If you are being asked to select a program to open the file with, you may pick 
   C:\Panda3d-1.8.0\python\python.exe For possible arguments, see launcher.py. 
   You can also drag the .py file onto your python.exe to run it. If you would force
   this to be your default Python installation you can also install Python 2.7.2 "over" 
   it by installing it to the location C:\Panda3d-1.8.0\python\ instead of the default
   C:\Python27. Do not forget that you need to uninstall Python and Panda in reverse order
   later.

   If you make a shortcut with the launcher.py file on the Desktop and append some 
   arguments you may have to modify the command line in the shortcut to look as follows:
   python "C:\mystuff\SNAP\launcher.py" -m MyModule
   (i.e., prepend python at the beginning, or C:\Panda3d-1.8.0\python\python.exe if
   you have multiple Pythons around).
   
   You can add new modules by putting a new code file in the modules directory
   (see modules\MAKING A MODULE.TXT). You can set up new studies (which is a way
   to organize content, e.g. media files, at study granularity by creating a
   sub-directory in the studies directory (see studies\MAKING A STUDY.TXT).

3. Set up the editor and development environment.
   In the folder where you installed Panda3d you find under the sub-directory 
   python/eclipse a reasonable Python editor (eclipse.exe). It is fairly usable
   but also quite clunky and complicated -- a good alternative is PyCharm (free for
   Academia and open-source projects); if you would like to use this instead, skip
   to the paragraph that starts with PyCharm).
      
   3.1. Eclipse) To import your current SNAP copy into the eclipse workspace, do the following:
   - Right-click the Project Explorer panel and choose Import...
   - Select General / Existing Projects into Workspace
   - Under Select root directory, choose the SNAP folder
   - Then under Projects: check SNAP (if not already checked) and click OK; 
     SNAP should now be imported.
   - you may be prompted to have your Python interpreter auto-configured. For this,
     click on Auto-config, when asked select your Panda3d-1.8.0/python/python.exe file
	 and otherwise click OK.

   If you don't have a green "Play" button in your Eclipse toolbar, you
   need to tell Eclipse (once) to auto-detect the Python interpreter:
   - In the main window, go to Window / Preferences
   - Expand Pydev, select Interpreter - Python, and click Auto Config and OK
   - Windows only: In the list below, add a folder by clicking on New Folder;
     your\path\to\Panda3d-1.8.0\bin

   To debug or run SNAP from within the IDE, right-click in the Project Explorer
   on the SNAP/src/launcher.py file, select Debug as / Python Run. After the
   first-time launch, you find a green round playback icon right under the
   source code panel, which lets you re-execute the previous configuration.
   
   By default this will just start the sample experiment; to customize the 
   command-line arguments used for startup, select "Run Configurations..."
   duplicate the one that is already pre-defined, and append to the arguments
   some combination of command line arguments as explained in the beginning 
   of launcher.py.
  
  
   3.2. PyCharm) After you have installed PyCharm, click "Open Directory" and point it to 
   your SNAP folder. Then right-click the launcher.py and select Run "launcher - defaults".
   You may be asked to select your Python Interpreter first. To do this:
   - Go to File / Settings / Project / Python Interpreter and click Configure Interpreter.
   - Click The add button (a plus) next to the upper list box
   - select the C:\Panda3d-1.8.0\python\python.exe file (or wherever you installed Panda)
   - after you have clicked okay it will take a while to read the directory and after that
     it will take another while until the wait bar at the bottom of the editor finishes
     (it says "Indexing..." next to it).
   - once the indexing is completed (a one-time thing) you can select the configuration to 
     run in the pull-down bar next to the green play button (triangle) and then it the 
     play button. To debug your code, click the button with the bug. See documentation.