Read Me

JAVA HOME AUTOMATION AKA(ALICE) README
======================================

This application is in a final stable release. This
document will explain some issues that end users may relize and are being
worked on.  

More document can be found in the readme.html

Introduction
============

Java Home Automation or Alice is a stand-alone Java based application.
It is written so that there would be a more viable write once run any
where application for Home Automation users.  This application has features
not found in other Home Automation applications. Alice has the ability to speak
commands, and run in a web application server such as Apache Tomcat.

System Requirements
===================

Alice requires Java Development Kit or Java Runtime Environment
1.2 or later. The true application has a graphical user interface, using 
the Swing 1.1 libraries (found at www.javasoft.com). 
Swing libraries come bundled with JDK 1.2 or higher. You will also be required 
to have the Java COMM library for your particular operating system.

The following libraries are used within the application and are included:
- Jesse Petersons x10 v1.0.1(http://www.jpeterson.com) 
- Byron Hawkins Formlayout api was found at http://www.jars.com/classes/jresout.cgi?resource=6241
- JGoodies Looks good api v1.1.2 found at http://jgoodies.com/downloads/libraries.html
- Java Servlet 2.1 api found at http://java.sun.com/products/servlet/2.1/
- FreeTTS api and JASAPI implementation found at htt://freetts.sourceforge.net

You can get JDK or JRE (you will need JDK if you want to compile the
source distribution) from http://www.java.sun.com for Windows, Solaris and
Linux. For other platforms you have to find out the appropriate place for
downloading.

Compiling
=========

This system has now been changed to use ANT found at http://jakarta.apache.org/ant .
Its a bit easier to use than just make and is platform independent. So if you
follow directions on the apache site about installing ant, which is a pretty
simple process you then can simply type ant and the sources should compile. I've noticed
that it takes a couple of times to run ant before a full build occures. So until
I figure out why ant isn't finding dependencies the first few times it tries
to compile just type ant a couple of times until you get BUILD SUCCESFUL.

Ant somewhat like make has a few 'targets' you can use and herein is a description:
Command                     Description
================            ===================
ant compile                  Compiles the source and makes appropriate jar/war files.
ant clean                   Deletes and cleans the source tree of binaries.
ant javadocs                Creates javadocs from the source code. Useful for developers.
		                However it does not make javadocs out of Jesse Peterson's api.
ant                         Does a full compile and packages everything for 
			          distribution.

The source binaries after a succesful build will be in a new subdirectory called dist/ Its in here you will find the alice.jar aliceweb.war files. Read the readme.html on running alice from those points.

Linux:
There are native libraries that the Java COMM api utilizes so download the 
solaris x86 version and use the jar from this.  Then go to 
http://www.rxtx.org and get the necessary sources 
build the native drivers for serial port connections. There are two packages that 
can be downloaded.  Both packages at RXTX.org are the same, but it is 
important to download the package that implements javax.io., rather than gnu.io.

MACS:
Native drivers and api for the COMM port connection are found at 
http://www.vmeng.com/beard/javax.comm.MRJ/