Proof Designer should work on any computer that supports a sufficiently up-to-date implementation of Java, and that can display the required mathematical symbols. This documents explains how to set up a Windows or Macintosh computer to use Proof Designer, and it also has suggestions about how to set up other systems.
To run Proof Designer in Windows, you will need the Java Plug-in from Sun Microsystems. If you don't already have it, or if your version is out of date, you can download the latest version from Sun's website. On some systems, you will be able to do an automatic download. If you need to do a manual download, follow the instructions for downloading and installing the "JRE" (Java Runtime Environment).
The Plug-in is all you should need to get Proof Designer working on a Windows computer. However, to get the best results when you print proofs, you may also want to configure your browser so that it will display mathematical symbols properly. For more information about this, see the instructions for the Export HTML command.
If you are using Mac OS X, you don't need to do anything to configure your computer to use Proof Designer. The Export HTML command works in Safari 1.2 or newer, but it doesn't work in earlier versions of Safari, and you may need to install a plugin to get it to work in some other browsers. For more on this, see the instructions for the Export HTML command.
If you are using Mac OS 8 or 9, then you will need the Swing classes. To get the Swing classes, you can download them from Sun. Note that the Sun installer will put the necessary files on your disk, but it will not put them where they need to go. After you run the installer, you need to put the file swing.jar in the folder System Folder:Extensions:MRJ Libraries:MRJClasses (i.e., in the folder MRJClasses, which is inside the folder MRJ Libraries, which is inside the Extensions folder, which is inside the System Folder).
There are two issues to worry about when trying to get Proof Designer to work on any platform. Proof Designer uses the Swing classes from Sun, and it uses some mathematical symbols.
The Swing classes are included in Java 1.2, so if you have a Java 1.2 (or newer) runtime environment, then you should be all set. The Swing classes are compatible with some older versions of Java, but you'll have to download them from Sun and figure out how to install them on your system.
If you get Proof Designer running, but the mathematical symbols don't seem to be displaying correctly, then you might want to try asking Proof Designer to use a different font. To do this, you'll have to create your own web page with a link to Proof Designer. Your web page should look something like this:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Proof Designer</TITLE>
<SCRIPT language="JavaScript">
function showHTML() {
outputWindow = window.open("", "", arguments[0]);
outputWindow.document.open();
var n = arguments.length;
for (var i = 1; i < n; i++) {
outputWindow.document.writeln(arguments[i]);
}
outputWindow.document.close();
}
</SCRIPT>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<APPLET codebase="http://www.cs.amherst.edu/~djv/pd"
archive="ProofDesigner.jar" code="ProofDesigner.class"
width="200" height="50" mayscript>
<PARAM name="symbolface" value="Lucida Sans">
<PARAM name="fontsize" value="12">
</APPLET>
</BODY>
</HTML>
Proof Designer expects two parameters, “symbolface” and “fontsize”. The symbolface parameter tells Proof Designer what font to use when drawing mathematical symbols. In the sample HTML above, the symbolface parameter is set to Lucida Sans. If that doesn't work, then try using the name of some other font on your system as the symbolface parameter and see what happens.