README file for the "Browse" GAP4 package by
Thomas Breuer and Frank Lübeck
To get the newest version of this GAP 4 package download one of the archive
files (where 'x.y' stands for the highest available version number)
Browse-x.y.tar.gz
Browse-x.y.zoo
Browse-x.y.tar.bz2
Browse-x.y-win.zip (with text files in DOS/Windows format)
from http://www.math.rwth-aachen.de/~Browse (or from www.gap-system.org)
and unpack it using
gunzip Browse-x.y.tar.gz; tar xvf Browse-x.y.tar
respectively
unzoo -x Browse-x.y.zoo
and so on.
Note that if you use a web browser for downloading the archive file the
'gunzip' step above may already be done by the browser, although the name of
your file may still have the misleading '.gz' extension.
The unpacking is done preferably (but not necessarily) inside the 'pkg'
subdirectory of your GAP 4 installation. It creates a subdirectory called
'Browse'.
To finish the installation it is necessary to compile a kernel module. For
this you need a C-compiler and the developer library of 'libncurses' (on
Debian based Linux systems there is a package called 'libncurses5-dev', on
other Linux/UNIX/cygwin systems this will be similar; otherwise refer to
http://www.gnu.org/software/ncurses/ncurses.html):
cd Browse
/bin/sh ./configure [path]
where 'path' is a path to the main GAP root directory (if not given the
default '../..' is assumed).
Afterwards call 'make' to compile a binary file which can be dynamically
loaded into your GAP sessions.
If you install GAP on several architectures, you must execute this
configure/make step on each of the architectures immediately after
configuring GAP itself on this architecture.
-------------------------------------------------------
Optional:
If you (also) want a statically linked GAP which includes the ncurses module
proceed as follows.
- Change to the bin/... directory where your GAP executable was created,
this contains a script 'gac'.
- Create the new static GAP executable, say 'gap.new' with
gac -o gap.new -p "-DNCURSESSTATIC" -P "-static -lpanel -lncurses" <your_path_to_Browse>/Browse/src/ncurses.c
This also works with several kernel modules. For example add the kernel
module from the EDIM package as well:
gac -o gap.new -p "-DNCURSESSTATIC -DEDIVSTATIC" -P "-static -lpanel -lncurses" <your_path_to_Browse>/Browse/src/ncurses.c <your_path_to_EDIM>/edim/src/ediv.c
-------------------------------------------------------
Recompiling the documentation is possible by the command 'make manual' in
the Browse directory (you need '(pdf)latex' and the 'netpbm' tools). But
this should not be necessary.
After installation you can load this package into your GAP session with:
gap> LoadPackage("Browse");
To get an impression of the content of the package you can run a demo:
gap> NCurses.Demo();
E-mail us if you have any questions, remarks, suggestions. Also, we would
like to hear about applications of this package.
Thomas Breuer (Thomas.Breuer@Math.RWTH-Aachen.De)
Frank Lübeck (Frank.Luebeck@Math.RWTH-Aachen.De)
