HOME    DEMONSTRATIONS       DOCUMENTATION       SUPPORT       SQL AND CHARTS    DOWNLOADS
 
Installing Entrance
 
System Requirements
Entrance will run on Macintosh, Windows, Linux, and Unix systems running Java® version 1.6 or later.  If you need to install or upgrade your Java system go to http://java.sun.com/.
 
Entrance also requires MySQL 5.0 or later.  A MySQL server can be running on your desktop, or you can use a server running on another machine.  To install a MySQL server on your machine, go to http://www.mysql.com/ and download the MySQL server package for your operating system.  Entrance may also work with earlier versions of MySQL, but this has not been tested.
 
A MySQL JDBC driver comes bundled with Entrance and is automatically installed in the library directory when you install from a DMG or ZIP download.
 
Installing Entrance
On Macintosh OS X:   Download the Entrance DMG file.  It will unpack itself into an OS X application.  You will see a standard Macintosh application with the Entrance SQL icon.  Simply copy it where you want it (your Applications directory is a good place).  Entrance can be retained in the Macintosh tool bar (Ctrl-click on the  Entrance toolbar icon and select Keep in Dock)
 
On Windows XP:    Download the Entrance ZIP file into a directory and unzip it where you want it.   You will find a standard windows EXE file with the Entrance SQL icon.  If you later copy the EXE file to a different directory, be sure to copy entrance.jar and the lib directory to the same place.
 
On Linux and other systems:   Download the Entrance ZIP file into a directory and unzip it.  Most systems will allow you to double click the entrance.jar icon to run the program.   On other systems you can launch Entrance with the command "java -jar entrance.jar".
 
Testing the Help Menu and the Web Browser Setting
It is a good idea to test the Help Menu to see if it is finding the web browser and can connect to the web.  Select one of the Help Menu items, and it should open a web page in the browser.  If not, go to the Preferences dialog, click on the "Misc" and change the browser string.  The defaults settings generally work on Windows and the Mac, however on Linux systems you may need to replace the string you find with "mozilla", "firefox" or another browser string to get things to work.  
 
Setting Other Preferences
The Preferences Dialog also controls the way tables and queries look.  You can change colors, fonts and other settings.  
 
In addition to the browser string described above, the "Misc" tab serves as a catchall for things that don't fit anywhere else.  Be sure to take a look at it.  In version 0.75.0, for example, this is the place to change limits on the the number of rows displayed in a table or the number of characters Entrance displays for a VARCHAR.
 
The Entrance System Directory
Entrance writes program settings to a human readable file in its system directory.  The About dialog will tell you where this directory is on your system.  On Macintosh systems it will be here:      /Users/(user home)/Library/Application\ Support/Entrance.  
 
On other systems it will be here:
    (user home)/.entrance
 
By deleting the Entrance system directory you can trick the program into thinking it should do a fresh install, but be careful about doing this.  The user may have SQL scripts stored in the Entrance system directory, and they will be deleted too.
 
Installing an Entrance upgrade does not cause the removal of your system directory.
 
Diagnostics and System Information
You can also run Entrance from the command line:
    java -jar entrance.jar
which will display useful debugging and error messages as Entrance runs.  On Macintosh systems, you will find the jar file in:  Entrance.app/Contents/Resources/Java
 
In case you can’t start Entrance at all, you can check the version of Java you have installed with this command:  java -version  and the version of Entrance with this:  java -jar entrance.jar -version.
 
Please note:  This web page and other Entrance documentation web pages are copyrighted material and have not been released under the terms of the GPL.
 
Copyright (c) Tod Landis 2006,2007 All Rights Reserved                           Modified:  June 4, 2007
 
Java and the Java Coffee Cup Logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries.  Solaris is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc.  MySQL is a registered trademark of MySQL AB in the United States, the European Union and other countries.  Windows is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation.  Macintosh is a trademark of Apple Computer, Inc.