General notes:
Thank you for using SimForest!  This document contains information about running the SimForest program, with specific instructions for Mac and Windows users.

SimForest can load a particular saved equation set, site, species, and/or tree table on startup instead of using its built-in defaults.  Place the saved file(s) in the same folder as SimForest, and give it/them the following names:
    Default Trees
    Default Species
    Default Site
    Default Equations
SimForest will then open these files when you begin using it.
 

Instructions for Mac users:
    To run SimForest, double-click on the "Forest" application icon at the top center of the Forest folder.

    SimForest requires the Swing interface toolkit from Sun Microsystems.  Since this is not installed by default on most Macs, you will need to install it before using SimForest.  We plan to make a Swing installer available from the SimForest Web page, but you can also obtain it directly from Sun:
    http://java.sun.com/products/jfc/download.html
The SimForest program is written in Java, and requires the Macintosh Runtime for Java (MRJ), which is probably already installed on your Mac, unless your Mac dates from before c. 1996.  For stability and speed, we recommend that you download the most recent version of MRJ.  It is available from Apple's Web site:
    http://www.apple.com/java
For Mac users, the unofficial "Mac OS Look and Feel" for Swing is recommended but not required.  This Look and Feel, which replaces Apple's default, will improve the appearance and behavior of Forest's user interface, making it conform better to Mac users' expectations.  You can find the Mac OS Look and Feel here:
    http://www.ing.unitn.it/~luttero/javaonMac/
Mac OS X users: SimForest has not yet been tested with Mac OS X.  It should work fine; please report your results to the SimForest developers.
 
 

Instructions for Windows users:
    To run SimForest, double-click on the "forest.bat" batch file, which may be called simply "forest" in the Windows Explorer.

    The SimForest program is written in Java, and requires the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) for Windows from Sun Microsystems.  If it is not already present on your computer, you will need to install the JRE before running SimForest.  (Look for a file called "c:\windows\system\java.exe"; if this is not present, you will need to install the JRE.)  You can obtain the JRE installer here:
    http://java.sun.com/products/jdk/1.2/jre/download-windows.html

Mac & Windows:
In addition, certain features of SimForest do not work correctly under JRE 1.3, so you may need to downgrade to JRE 1.2 if you already have the later version installed.  We apologize for this, and hope to remedy the problem soon.
 
 

Running SimForest on other (non-Mac, non-Windows) platforms:
    On another platform, you will need to do slightly more work, and understand more about running Java programs, to get SimForest working.  Your computer must have a Java virtual machine that is compliant with Java 1.1 or greater, and must have the Swing interface toolkit installed as well.
    The class path must contain "Forest Classes.jar" (which contains the SimForest program) and all of the JAR files in the "Libraries" folder (which are used by SimForest).  The main class is "ForestApp".  No command-line arguments are required by SimForest.
    The batch file "forest.bat" contains an example of how all this worked out for Windows.  On a Unix or Unix-like system, you may be able to use the final line of "forest.bat" on your command line just by changing "c:\windows\system\java" to "java".