Before you start

First, set up your machine so that it can run Fiz. You will need to install the following packages:

• Java 5 or later
• Apache ant 1.6 or later (http://ant.apache.org/)
• Apache Tomcat 6 (http://tomcat.apache.org/download-60.cgi)

Download Fiz

Download the latest version of the Fiz installer from http://fiz.stanford.edu/fizCore/home. Once you have that, unzip it to some location on your file system. The rest of this page assumes that the unzipped install directory is called fiz-x. You will need to retain the install directory for later use by the fiz command-line tool.

The Fiz command-line tool

The Fiz distribution includes a command-line program named fiz. This program provides facilities that make it easy for you to manage your Fiz application(s), such as:

• Create a new Fiz application using a standard directory hierarchy and collection of ant targets.
• Import a Fiz extension into an application.
• Create a new Fiz extension.
• Upgrade to a newer release of Fiz or an extension.

Before you can use fiz you must open a shell window, cd to the install directory (fiz-x), and type the following shell command:

ant install

This will create the fiz application in the directory fiz-x/bin. On Windows there will be two versions of fiz: fiz.bat, which is a native Windows script, and fiz, which is a shell script that will run under Cygwin and other UNIX emulation environments. You will then need to add fiz-x/bin to your PATH variable.

To learn how to use fiz, type

fiz help

or click here for more information.

Running the demo application

The Fiz distribution includes a demonstration application with a few simple pages that illustrate the basic features of Fiz. To try out this application:

• Open a shell window, cd into fiz-x and invoke the following ant target:

  ant build-demo

  This will compile the demonstration application and create a directory fiz-x/out/demo that contains an image ready for installation in Tomcat.
• Find the ROOT application directory in your Tomcat installation (if Tomcat is installed in directory xyz it should be in the xyz/webapps/ROOT). Replace the contents of the ROOT application directory with the contents of fiz-x/out/demo.
• Start your Tomcat server; if it is already running, you may need to restart it in order for it to see the application directory changes.
• You should now be able to try out the demo application. If your Tomcat server is running on the port 8080 (the default) you can click on the following links:
  • A collection of tables: http://localhost:8080/demo/tableSection
  • A few simple forms: http://localhost:8080/demo/formSection
  • A tabbed header: http://localhost:8080/demo/tabSection
  • An expandable tree: http://localhost:8080/demo/tree
  • Examples of CompoundSections: http://localhost:8080/demo/compound
  • Examples of RatingSections: http://localhost:8080/demo/ratingSection