Easy Setup Overview

This document explains the procedures necessary to download and install ArchStudio. ArchStudio has three critical components:

1. Java SE 8 SDK*, and
2. Eclipse 4.5* or later.
3. ArchStudio itself.

* ArchStudio is also compatible with Java SE 7 and Eclipse 4.3 and 4.4. Simply follow the instructions below, but substitute the older technologies as appropriate.

If you already have the Java SE 8 SDK or Eclipse 4.5 installed, you may safely skip those parts of these instructions as they require no special configuration for ArchStudio.

Step 1: Setting up Java SE 8 SDK

It is possible that you already have Java 8 installed on your machine. To check, start a command-prompt and run:

java -version

If the version reported is (1.)8.0 or better, skip to the next step. If not, you will need to obtain a version of Java for your target environment. In general, you can obtain such a release free of charge from Oracle at the Java SE Downloads site. This is generally the path to pursue.

Linux users may also want to investigate how Java is deployed on their particular distribution of Linux. Many distributions offer Java through their package repositories such as apt.

Step 2: Setting up Eclipse

ArchStudio requires Eclipse 4.5. If you already have Eclipse installed, you may install ArchStudio into your existing environment and can skip to the next step. Alternatively, you can simply duplicate your Eclipse directory or download and extract another copy to create a copy of Eclipse solely for running ArchStudio.

Download Eclipse 4.5 from the Eclipse downloads site. Eclipse's site should provide adequate documentation for expanding the archive and starting the Eclipse environment.

When starting Eclipse, it may ask you for a workspace location. This is the directory where Eclipse will store projects, including ArchStudio projects that contain xADL files. You may accept the default or choose a different directory. We recommend creating a new directory outside of Eclipse's install directory, since this makes it easier to upgrade Eclipse later without having to go through extra trouble to migrate your workspace to the new version.

Once Eclipse is running, it may show the Welcome view if this is the first time it has been run. Close the Welcome view and the Java development perspective should be displayed.

Step 3: Installing ArchStudio

The following steps walk you through the install of ArchStudio. Note that you must be connected to the Internet for this to work.

To install ArchStudio perform the following steps: Go to Help | Install New Software... to open the Available Software dialog box. In the "Work with:" text box (as highlighted on the left) enter the following URL: http://www.isr.uci.edu/projects/archstudio-5/updatesite-4.3 Press Enter and wait for Eclipse to display entries in the table below the "Work With" text box. Select "ArchStudio" (as highlighted on the left). Hit "Next" to go to the Install Details page. Hit "Next" again to go to the Review Licenses page. Select "I accept the terms of the license agreement(s)". Hit "Finish".

Eventually, a security warning will appear, as shown on the left. Hit "OK".

Installation of ArchStudio may take several minutes. When finished, you will be prompted to restart Eclipse. Hit "Yes".

Using ArchStudio

Once ArchStudio is installed, proceed to the getting started with an architecture.

Updating ArchStudio

Updates to ArchStudio are also deployed through the ArchStudio update site and are available through Eclipse's plug-in update mechanisms. To perform an update, do the following:

• Go to Help | Check for Updates

Contact Us

If you have questions not answered by this website, please feel free to contact the software architectures group at UC Irvine through the ArchStudio developer's (mailman protected) email list at: archstudio-dev [@] uci [.] edu. (Note: You must subscribe to the mail list before you can post to it.)