ActiveMath on Windows

Here is a quick summary of Windows-specific instructions. You should also consult the official documentation for installing and running ActiveMath under Unix.

System Requirements

Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista

Java 1.5 or better:

If you have the binary distribution of ActiveMath, you only need a "Java Runtime Environment (JRE)" from http://java.com.

If you have a source distribution of ActiveMath, you need the "Java SE Development Kit (JDK)" from http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/.

CAS (Computer Algebra System):
We currently support Yacas, Wiris-CAS and Maxima. For details, follow instructions here.
As browser, we recommend the latest version of Firefox from http://getfirefox.com. Internet Explorer 6 or better works with ActiveMath, but is not our main target platform. Support for other browsers is not guaranteed.

Installation
Unzip the ActiveMath archive. This creates a directory like activemath-1.0, where the release number may be different for you. From now on, we will refer to this directory as activemath.

Make sure the environment variable JAVA_HOME is set and points to a JRE or JDK. To do this, either edit bin\activemath.bat, or set a systemwide environment variable:
Click Start > Control Panel > System on Windows XP or Start > Settings > Control Panel > System on Windows 2000.

Click Advanced > Environment Variables.
Add a new variable JAVA_HOME that contains the location of the Java installation. A typical value for JAVA_HOME is:
C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0
The new variable takes effect in each new command window you open after setting the JAVA_HOME variable.

Make sure that you have a pre-compiled version: Does the directory activemath\lib\ exist? And does the file activemath.jar exist in this directory? If not, go to the activemath\bin directory and start ant.bat.

Go to the activemath\bin directory and start InstallActivemath.bat. Wait for it to finish, which can take some time when you have installed large contents.

Now you are ready to start ActiveMath!

Starting ActiveMath

Go to the activemath\bin directory and start StartActivemath.bat

Browse to http://localhost:8080/ActiveMath2/ . You should see the ActiveMath login page. Login as demo user, i.e. one of anton, bert, clara, david, eva, waldemar, xavier, yanik, zoe. The password is always the same as the user name.

You can also have a look at the walkthrough section at http://localhost:8080/ActiveMath2/main/help.cmd?topic=walktrough

Stopping ActiveMath

Simply close the console window.

Setting up a CAS
In order to run interactive exercises with ActiveMath, you need to setup a CAS (Computer Algebra System).
Installing new content
If you only have an evaluation version, ActiveMath comes with only minimal example content.

In case you have access to additional content, you have to install it:

Shut down ActiveMath.

Copy its content descriptor file (ContentDescr_*.properties) to the conf directory

Then go to activemath\bin and issue the following command:

activemath -run buildIndex

This will build the content database, as well as the search index for the Search module. It can take quite some time, depending on the size of your content.

Start ActiveMath. The new content should show up in the main menu page.

Hints

In order to start the servers from your desktop, you can create a shortcut to bin\StartActivemath.bat on your desktop.

See activemath -h for more things to do.
By default, ActiveMath uses port 8080 for its web service. If this port is already taken on your machine, you can change it in activemath\conf\server.xml (which is the Tomcat configuration file).
If you want Activemath to produce PDF output, you need a working Latex installation (eg. from www.miktex.org). Inconf/ActiveMath-individual.properties, configure the path to the pdflatex command, for example:
output.pdflatex.command-path=D:\\tex\\miktex\\bin\\pdflatex.exe
Backslash characters ("\") need to be written as "\\".
See the ActiveMath installation guide for more configuration options.
Stefan Winterstein, <winter@activemath.org>