Startup problems on Windows and Mac OS X

[makarius]

This is 201304041200 on Windows or Mac OS X, which I am trying here for the first time.

Trying to run the bare isabelle-eclipse executable inside the directory, it says "The Isabelle-eclipse executable launcher was unable to locate its companion shared libraries" -- on both these platforms.

On Mac OS X, I can double-click isabelle-eclipse.app instead, and it starts up, but later I don't find the way to got to the Isabelle perspective. (The Isabelle "feature" seems to be there according to the "About" dialog.)

[andriusvelykis]

This is strange - I have just tried the Mac version (on Mountain Lion) and everything works correctly.

Are you using Java 7 to launch Isabelle/Eclipse? If it does not get picked up by default, try indicating the correct VM.

[makarius]

OK, I had a very old test version of JDK 1.7.0 on my Mac as default, apart from many other versions. Changing the default "java" binary, I can start up the .app and see the Isabelle stuff.

Note that Oracle now encourages applications builders to bundle a fixed Java Runtime within the .app. The former system default as for Apple Java 6 is on retreat. This is probably a problem of Eclipse application bundling in general.

The other startup problems about shared libraries remain.

[andriusvelykis]

I am reluctant to bundle Java (Eclipse doesn't), though requiring Java 7 would give some more problems especially on Macs.. I'll have your advice in mind.

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I have just tried running this version on Windows (Windows 7, 32-bit, Java 1.7.0_05) by executing isabelle-eclipse.exe - everything started up correctly with Isabelle perspective, etc. What is your Windows configuration, Java version and how are you launching Isabelle/Eclipse so that I could try reproducing the error?

On Macs, it is usual to start Eclipse-based applications by double-clicking the .app file. In this case, everything works. If you want to start it from command-line, you can execute the launched within isabelle-eclipse.app/Contents/MacOS/isabelle-eclipse.

I can reproduce your problem on the Mac by launching isabelle-eclipse file in the root. It is a bug - that file should be a symlink to the aforementioned executable, but for some reason is copied instead. I have created a new bug to track it (#51) - thanks!

Could you give me more details on the Windows version?

[makarius]

This is plain Windows 7, again with a bit too many JDK and JRE installations. I am unsure if the standard Java installer takes care of the PATH somehow. Using windows "cmd" there is no access to "java.exe" and thus "isabelle-eclipse.exe" produces that uninformative error about shared libraries. Also when clicking on the exe via the Windows file manager.

I does work when I change to my homely Cygwin terminal, which has a certain JDK 1.7 in its PATH.