Installing and Configuring techexplorer

In this section we discuss installation and configuration details for techexplorer on various operating system platforms and browsers. Note that additional information is available in the Customization section.

• General
• Microsoft Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows NT
• General
• Plug-in
• ActiveX Control
• Macintosh
• UNIX
• General
• Installation
• IBM AIX 4.1
• Linux
• Sun Solaris 2.5
• SGI IRIX 6.2
• Web server configuration

General

• You must exit your web browser before installing this or any other browser plug-in. Plug-ins are registered when the browser starts, so you must exit and re-start your browser if you have not done so already.
• If you are using Netscape Navigator, your cache size must be large enough. Look at the Edit | Preferences... | Advanced | Cache menu settings and make sure your your memory cache is at least 1024 kilobytes and the disk cache is at least 5000 Kilobytes. If the settings are too small, techexplorer may fail to load multimedia files and "input" files.
• Note that the install process, techexplorer dialogs, menus and the such will for each platform.
  

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Microsoft Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows NT

General

• Regarding fonts and symbols: techexplorer can use several different sets of fonts for finding the symbols it needs (for example, greek letters). See Customizing your techexplorer environment section for more information.

Plug-in

• This plug-in is known to work with Microsoft Windows 32 bit versions of the Netscape Navigator version 4. It may not work with pre-release (e.g., "beta" or "preview release") versions of the Netscape Navigator. Many of the features of this plug-in are also available when used with the Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0. One major exception is the scripting interface where Netscape LiveConnect is used. This plug-in further requires Microsoft Windows 95 or Windows NT 4.0 with Service Pack 3 (or greater).
• If you have both Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer installed you do not need to install techexplorer twice. Simply install the plug-in for Netscape Navigator. The installation will set up the necessary file extension associations and MIME type information in the system registry. Internet Explorer should be able to locate the plug-in when needed.
• If you get a message from Microsoft Internet Explorer similar to

The data that the plugin requested, did not download successfully.

this simply means that techexplorer requested a file or image that is not present on the server. Netscape Navigator does not notify you in this way.

• The actual plug-in file is called nptchexp.dll. There is no standalone executable file.

ActiveX Control

• The techexplorer ActiveX control can be manually added and removed from the Windows NT regirstry as follows:

  $(WINDIR)\System32\regsvr32.exe /v c:\Program Files\IBM techexplorer HyperMedia Browser\Bin\Axtchexp.ocx
  $(WINDIR)\System32\regsvr32.exe /u c:\Program Files\IBM techexplorer HyperMedia Browser\Bin\Axtchexp.ocx 
  

• The techexplorer ActiveX control can be manually added and removed from the Windows 95\98 regirstry as follows:

  $(WINDIR)\System\regsvr32.exe /v c:\Program Files\IBM techexplorer HyperMedia Browser\Bin\Axtchexp.ocx
  $(WINDIR)\System\regsvr32.exe /u c:\Program Files\IBM techexplorer HyperMedia Browser\Bin\Axtchexp.ocx
  

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Macintosh

• The Professional Edition is not currently available for Macintosh platforms.
• This plug-in is known to work with both Macintosh OS 8 and OS 9 as been tested with Internet Explorer 4 and 5 as well as Netscape Navigator 4.
• A PowerPC (PPC) processor is required and older processors are not supported.
• Full LaTeX (ex. .tex) and MathML (ex. .mml) documents MAY not have the appropriate associations with Microsoft Internet Explorer 4. LaTeX and MathML embedded in HTML should work just fine. Internet Explorer 5 and Netscape does not have the issues regarding the file associations.
• Some features in the Microsoft Windows version of techexplorer may not yet be available or fully and correctly implemented in this release. In particular:
• There is limited support for input boxes.
• Further Document rendering refinement is needed.

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UNIX

General

• The Professional Edition is not currently available for UNIX platforms.
• This version only supports GIF and JPEG image formats.
• Some features in the Microsoft Windows version of techexplorer may not yet be available or fully and correctly implemented in this release. In particular:
• Property pages for Math and Symbols will be enabled in a later release.
• A few character mappings are missing or wrong.
• This version of the UNIX edition of techexplorer does not support cut/paste selection operations.
• Support for the Mathematical Markup Language in this version requires that you associate the text/mathml MIME type with the .mml file extension. For example using Netscape Communicator open the applications property page by following the Edit >Preferences > Navigator > Applications menu. Select and Edit the text/mathml entry. Make sure that the MIME Type is text/mathml and that the Suffixes is set to mml.

Installation

• Download the techexplorer installation file to a temporary directory. The name of this file will vary by release, but its file extension will be ".tgz". For example, it may be te30introaix.tgz. We will use this file in what follows, but substitute the actual name of the file you download.
• The installation package is compressed in gzip format. Many UNIX systems already have this installed but you may be able to download it from

         ftp://ftp.netscape.com/pub/unsupported/gnu

  if necessary. If you do install gzip, remember the installation location because you may need it in the setup process.

• Un-compress this file by issuing

       gzip -d te30introaix.tgz

• Un-tar resulting file by issuing

       tar -xvf te30introaix.tgz

• Now execute techexplorer/setup in a shell window. This will ask you some questions about whether you accept the license agreement and where some system utilities are located. To accept the default choices, press the Enter (or Return) key.
• Shared Installation: During the shared installation process you will be asked to supply a techexplorer "home" directory rather than use the default $HOME/.netscape/techexplorer path. Be sure to define the following environment variables after installation:

     TECHEXPLORER_HOME=your techexplorer installation directory;
     export TECHEXPLORER_HOME;
     NPX_PLUGIN_PATH=$NPX_PLUGIN_PATH:$TECHEXPLORER_HOME/PlugIn;
     export NPX_PLUGIN_PATH;

• The TECHEXPLORER_HOME variable will point techexplorer to the appropriate installation directory. The NPX_PLUGIN_PATH will allow Netscape to add techexplorer to the list of available Plug-ins. When a user invokes techexplorer for the first time in a shared installation, a new directory ($HOME/.netscape/techexplorer) is created in which personal configuration files are placed.
• Motif: IBM's techexplorer is dynamically linked with the X Window System Version 11 and Motif libraries. If the Motif dynamic libraries are not properly installed, techexplorer will not be able to execute. On some installations the Motif libraries are found in /usr/dt/lib. If the linker can not find the Motif libraries, you will have to update the linker's search path by setting the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable as follows:

     LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/usr/dt/lib;
     export LD_LIBRARY_PATH;

Note: Linux users do not require a Motif installation.

• Directory hierarchy: The setup program creates the following directory hierarchy:

         $HOME/.netscape/techexplorer
         $HOME/.netscape/techexplorer/Bin
         $HOME/.netscape/techexplorer/Cache
         $HOME/.netscape/techexplorer/Config
         $HOME/.netscape/techexplorer/Documentation
         $HOME/.netscape/techexplorer/Fonts
         $HOME/.netscape/techexplorer/License
         $HOME/.netscape/techexplorer/Resources

• Permissions: techexplorer executes with the same User ID as Netscape Navigator and must have read and write access to the $HOME/.netscape/techexplorer directory and its contents. If necessary, you can change the file permission modes by using the chmod command. If you are using an AFS file system, the fs command may have to be used to set the required privileges. For example:

     fs la $HOME/.netscape/techexplorer
     fs sa $HOME/.netscape/techexplorer system:anyuser rl

• Fonts and symbols: techexplorer ships with and uses a subset of the publicly available PostScript Type 1 version of the Computer Modern fonts from BlueSky Research and Y&Y, Inc., via the American Mathematical Society. To see if the fonts can be correctly used by techexplorer on your machine, type the following to the shell:

     xset fp default
     xset +fp $HOME/.netscape/techexplorer/Fonts
     xset fp rehash

If techexplorer encounters a symbol in a document for which there is no character in the select symbol font set, the symbol name is displayed in red, as in "\hookLeftarrow".

• You can display a font by invoking xfd:

     xfd -fn -bluesky-cmbsy10-bold-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-adobe-fontspecific
 

• The X Window System server must have read access to the fonts files in order to render. Incorrect directory permissions will cause the above xset or xfd commands to fail. See above for more information on file permission modes. Several users have noted that, for their particular system, the "all others read" (chmod o+r $HOME/.netscape/techexplorer/Fonts) permission flag must be set for the X Window System to access the font directory.
• Font Path: techexplorer's font path information is stored in the $HOME/.netscape/techexplorer/Cache/registry resource file. Font directories and font servers can be added via the "Font Path" property page or the registry file itself.
• Font Server: Since the X server must have access to the techexplorer font path, remote X displays that do not share the techexplorer installation file system can not be used. This can be alleviated by running a font server on the techexplorer installation machine and adding this server to the remote X display's font path. For example, on the techexplorer installation machine you can execute

     fs -config fs.config -port 8000

and on the remote X display execute

     xset fp default
     xset +fp tcp/hostname:8000
     xset fp rehash

Here is a sample fs.config file:

     client-limit = 10
     clone-self = on
     catalogue = $HOME/.netscape/techexplorer/Fonts
     default-point-size = 120
     default-resolutions = 100,100,75,75
     use-syslog = off

IBM AIX 4.1

• This version of techexplorer requires IBM AIX 4.1 or greater.
• This plug-in will work only for IBM AIX versions of the Netscape Navigator or Netscape Communicator clients, version 4.03 or greater.
• Pay special attention to the AIX "Installation Troubleshooting" section of Netscape's README file.
• This plug-in may not work with pre-release (e.g. "beta" or "preview release") versions of the Netscape Navigator.
• This plug-in may not work with releases of AIX Netscape Navigator or Communicator distributions that were created before September 19th, 1997.

Linux

• This version of techexplorer has been tested with RedHat 5.1, 5.2, 6.0 and 6.1. It has been found to run reliably on other Linux installations; however, it has not been thoroughly tested on platforms other than RedHat 5.1 and 5.2.
• The following shared libraries must be present:
  libXp.so.6, libXi.so.6, libXext.so.6, libXt.so.6, libX11.so.6, libSM.so.6, libICE.so.6, libm.so.6, libc.so.6, ld-linux.so.2.
• This plug-in will work only for  Linux versions of the Netscape Navigator or Netscape Communicator clients, version 4.0 or greater. This plug-in may not work with pre-release (e.g. "beta" or "preview release") versions of the Netscape Navigator.

Sun Solaris 2.5

• This version of techexplorer requires Sun Solaris 2.5 or greater.
• This plug-in will work only for Sun SPARC Solaris versions of the Netscape Navigator or Navigator Gold clients, version 2.0 or greater. It may not work with pre-release (e.g. "beta" or "preview release") versions of the Netscape Navigator.
• Sun Solaris 2.6 requires patch 105633-08

SGI IRIX 6.2

• This version of techexplorer requires SGI IRIX 6.2.
• This plug-in will work only for SGI IRIX versions of the Netscape Navigator or Navigator Gold clients, version 3.0 or greater. It may not work with pre-release (e.g. "beta" or "preview release") versions of the Netscape Navigator.

Web server configuration

When you install the techexplorer plug-in, it is auto-registered with Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer to handle Web documents with the following MIME types and corresponding file extensions:
 

In order to use these files from a web server, you must configure the server to associate the file extension with the MIME type. In what follows we describe what you must do for several of the most popular web servers.

Netscape Server

type=application/x-tex           exts=tex,bbl
type=application/x-latex         exts=latex,ltx
type=application/x-techexplorer  exts=tcx
type=text/mathml                 exts=mml

Cern HTTPD server

AddType .tex    application/x-tex           8bit    1.0
AddType .bbl    application/x-tex           8bit    1.0
AddType .latex  application/x-latex         8bit    1.0
AddType .ltx    application/x-latex         8bit    1.0
AddType .tcx    application/x-techexplorer  8bit    1.0
AddType .mml    text/mathml                 8bit    1.0

NCSA HTTPD or Apache server

AddType application/x-tex           .tex .bbl
AddType application/x-latex         .latex .ltx
AddType application/x-techexplorer  .tcx
AddType text/mathml                 .mml

application/x-tex           tex bbl
application/x-latex         latex ltx
application/x-techexplorer  tcx
text/mathml                 mml

Microsoft Internet Information Server

application/x-tex,tex,,5
application/x-tex,,bbl
application/x-latex,latex,,5
application/x-latex,,ltx
application/x-techexplorer,tcx,,5
text/mathml,mml,,5

More information about configuring IIS may be available at the Microsoft web site.