Installation of SIR/XS under Unix

Note: These instructions are generic unix installation instructions. The 
downloaded file is referred to here as sirxsxxx.tar where the xxx is a three
letter abrieviation (TLA) for the particular unix platform. For example:
sirxssol.tar == Solaris
sirxslux.tar == linux
...

Note: In order to run SIR/XS you will need a valid licence code. If you have a
maintained licence (not a perpetual licence) for an earlier version of SIR then
you can use that code or contact SIR Pty Ltd for a new code. Demonstration 
licence codes are available and will last around two months.


Overview

The downloaded file, sirxsxxx.tar.gz is a zipped (gzip) archive (tar) of the 
SIRXS installation directory. To install SIR/XS you need to build the 
installation directory and update three environment variables for each SIR/XS 
user.

Detailed Instructions

1) UNZIP the zipped archive

	gunzip sirxsxxx.tar.gz

This will create a tar file sirxsxxx.tar

You should put this tar file into the parent directory of the location where 
you wish to install SIRXS. You may need root permission to achieve this. for
example:

	mv sirxsxxx.tar /usr
	cd /usr

2) UNTAR the tar file

	tar -xvf sirxsxxx.tar

This will create the sirxs subdirectory in your current directory, create all
necessary subdirectories inside sirxs and copy all the files. If you prefer to
do so, you can now change the name of SIR home directory from sirxs to
anything else.

Note that you need to specify a proper platform code instead of 'xxx' (see the
readme.txt in the root directory of the installation CD). You may need a
slightly different combination of the tar's options depending on your version of
the tar program. Normally you would like to take the ownership of the files and
directories and preserve the permission bits, which are all 755/644 inside the
archive file.

3) If only a small group of power users use SIR on your system, you might wish
to modify the owner/group and access rights status of the files and
subdirectories installed. It would allow power users to add custom help pages,
images and toolbar button bitmaps into the relevant subdirectories of the SIR
home directory, replace keymap files and even modify the code in the core
libraries of SIR stored in the SIR system procedure file.

4) Write brief instructions for your users, so they know the name of the SIR
home directory for this version and can perform the end-user part of
installation for their specific environments. And do it yourself before moving
to step 6.

5) Run the sir executable file. Your will be prompted to type in your licence
information and SIR will create the licence file sir.lcn in SIR home directory.
It is a text file and can be edited manually if you don't have the X-Window
environment and have installed SIR only for its server functionality. In that
case, you need to create the file manually. Write your user id on the first
line, your licence code on the second and the licence holder name on the third.

This will also build the help keyword database.

6) You should create two keymap files (*.kmp). You are prompted to create these
when you run sir and sirforms for the first time or is the appropriate keymap
file cannot be found. There are eight required keys that you should map (enter,
backspace escape up down left right and shift+F1) the last key mapped will bring
up the key map window and allow you to change the keymappings. If you have
sirforms users or old style PQL graphic applications then you should map some
other key functions such as page up, page down, execute etc. Note that the
keymap file will be saved in your CURRENT working directory. You may need to
copy it into SIR home directory. Repeat the same for SIRFORMS. When users run
SIR, it searches for keymap files in the current working directory and if a
local copy is not found, uses the file from SIR home directory. If different
users use different X-Window environments (some work on the Unix machine itself,
others access it using the X-Window emulators installed on their PCs), the
remote users will have to keep their own keymap files in a directory which is
their current directory when they run SIR.

7) Check that the fonts used by SIR (defined in .sir in user's home directory)
are present on your system. The sample version of .sir can be found in the test
subdirectory of the SIR home directory under the name sir.ini. Edit it if the
fonts have to be changed and tell the users to take it. You might need to create
a special version of this file for the users running SIR from remote PCs under
X-Window emulators.

8) each SIR user should edit their user profile to include the following:

 - Define SIRDIR environment variable pointing to SIR home directory
 - Include SIR home directory into your PATH
 - Include it into the list of directories searched by the loader for
   the shared libraries (if there are *.so/*.sl files installed into
   SIR home directory)

The person who has installed SIR on the system can provide you with instructions
on how to do it in your specific environment. Here is an example of the lines
which you might have in your .profile file under Solaris:

	SIRDIR=/usr/sirxs
	PATH=$PATH:$SIRDIR
	LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib:/usr/openwin/lib:/opt/SUNWmotif/lib:/lib:$SIRDIR
	export SIRDIR PATH LD_LIBRARY_PATH
	
	(the environment variable SHLIB_PATH may also be required on some systems)

 - When each user runs SIR/XS for the first time, a configuration file is
 created in their home directory. This file is called .sir and one key thing
 that is required is the command name for the user's preferred html viewer (this
 is for viewing the help files). Each user will be prompted for this on their
 first execution but it can be changed at any time in the
 settings/Preferences... dialog.
 
 - If the user is working through an xwindows emulator then they may need to
 specify alternate fonts and they may have trouble doing this in the
 preferences dialog (ie if they cannot see the dialog font). To modify these
 (or any) settings you can edit the .sir file directly and change the sir.fnamm
 (menu font) sir.fnamn (dialog font) sir.fnamt (output font) and exw.fname
 (execution window font) accordingly. for example:
	 sir.fnamm:    variable
	 sir.fnamn:    variable
	 sir.fnamt:    fixed
	 exw.fname:    fixed
 
 tip: use the xlsfonts command to list the xwindows fonts available.