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Cincom VisualWorks, assigning .im files to the program

Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2013 2:09 pm
by maverick757
Hi everyone!

I am a pretty new Linux Mint user. I use Mint 14 with Cinnamon.
I have a little problem concerning the program "VisualWorks" by the company Cincom. VisualWorks is an IDE for Cincom Smalltalk, a object-oriented programming language, I am learning in university. Since I need VisualWorks at home (I want to stop using windows), I downloaded the image file from the Cincom website. Luckily their software is compatible to Windows, Linux and Mac OS.
So I mounted the .iso file and installed VisualWorks to the path /home/$user/vw7.9.1pul
After the installation was complete, a popup opened with the following message:
"Please set an environment variable named: VISUALWORKS
to the value: /home/$user/vw7.9.1pul
in the appropriate unix startup file."
After a bit of using google, I kind of found out how to do that. I have no real idea, what I did, but here are the steps, I performed yesterday:
1. I set an Environment Variable by opening a terminal and typing:
"export /home/$user/vw7.9.1pul" (with my username for $user, of course).
After doing that "export -p" showed a newly added value "declare -x VISUALWORKS="/home/$user/vw7.9.1pul"

I have no idea what an environment variable is and why or for what I need to set it. After a reboot "export -p" didn't show "VISUALWORKS="/home/$user/vw7.9.1pul" anymore. So somehow I did something wrong.

But here is what I want to do: I want .im files to be opened by Cincom Visual Works automatically.
There is no Shortcut for VisualWorks anywhere. I already managed to open VisualWorks by command line and wrote a shell script to load my image automatically, but there must be an easier way to do that. Here is my shell script:

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh
cd /home/$user/vw7.9.1pul/bin/linux86/
./vwlinux86gui -=/home/$user/Dokumente/NAK/Smalltalk/image.im
exit
It seems that the file "vwlinux86gui" in the folder "/bin" located in the installation path of VisualWorks opens the program. My script is working, but I want, that .im files are opened automatically by Visualworks, because I don't want to write a shell script for every .im file I need to open.

Can anyone help me to do that (and resolve the mystery, what an Environemt variable is)?

Thanks a lot!
maverick757

Re: Cincom VisualWorks, assigning .im files to the program

Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2013 6:06 pm
by kt_Smalltalk
Hi,

If you are needing this for academic purposes, take a look at http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/main/dev ... c-program/. If you sign up under this program, you can get support from Cincom.

Another option is to subscribe to http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/vwnc. Both customers and the curious get answers in this forum.

There is an installation pdf in the root of the VisualWorks directory. It does tell how to set this variable for Linux/Unix platforms. That variable is used to point to the location of parcels as well. If you manage to open up VIsualWorks, go to the settings menu option.



Set VisualWorks Home Directory
In order to correctly find additional files, the VisualWorks Home
directory must be properly set. For client installations, this is typically
configured correctly during installation (Windows and Mac OS), or is
set in the startup script (Unix/Linux).
Installing VisualWorks
2-10 VisualWorks
To set the home directory for the current session, select File >
Set VisualWorks Home in the Launcher window.
The Settings Tool opens on the home directory page:
Set the VisualWorks Home Directory to the root VisualWorks installation
directory, typically c:\vw7.9nc on Windows systems or /usr/local/
vw7.9nc on UNIX or Linux systems. Then click OK.
On Windows systems, the VisualWorks Home is saved in the system
registry. On UNIX and Linux systems, it needs to be set in a system
variable, as described in an information screen at the end of the
installation (and in the file userActions.txt).

That's it for now.

Cheers