Installing and Upgrading Vex

Installing Vex

  1. Install the Java 2 Software Development Kit (J2SDK) or Runtime Environment (J2RE) from Sun Microsystems. Vex requires version 1.4.X or better. If you think you may have Java installed, you can check by running java -version from the command line.
  2. Download the version of Vex applicable to your operating system from Sourceforge. Note: yes, 25Mb is a huge download. That's mostly due to the Eclipse platform on which Vex is based. However, once you've installed Vex future updates are installed using the Eclipse Update facility, and are therefore much smaller (~2Mb).
  3. Unzip the archive to a directory on your hard disk.
  4. From the unzipped directory, run the vex executable.
  5. As Vex is starting, it will prompt you for the location of your workspace. The workspace is a directory that holds the Vex documents on which you will be working. By default, Vex selects the workspace subdirectory of the Vex installation directory. Once you have selected a workspace, you are presented with the Vex main window.

Upgrading Vex

If you've already installed Vex, you can upgrade to the latest version using the Eclipse Update facility as follows.

  1. Select Help > Software Updates > Find and Install....
  2. Select Search for new features to install and click Next >. Note: the Vex upgrade may or may not be available under Search for updates of the currently installed features depending on the version of Vex you have installed, the version to which you are upgrading, and your settings under Windows > Preferences > Install/Update.
  3. Select Vex Update Site and click Next >.
  4. Select Vex XML Editor and click Next >.
  5. Read the license agreement. If you agree, select I accept the terms in the license agreements and click Next > .
  6. Click Finish.
  7. You will be warned that the feature is not signed. Click Install to proceed with the installation.
  8. When the installation is complete you will be prompted to restart Eclipse.

Installing Vex Into Eclipse 3.0

If you are already an Eclipse 3.0 user, you can install Vex functionality into your existing Eclipse environment, either by connecting to the update site (recommended) or by downloading the Vex plugins.

Update Site

If your computer is connected to the Internet, you should install Vex via the update site as follows.

  1. From Eclipse, select Help > Software Updates > Find and Install....
  2. Select Search for new features to install and click Next >.
  3. Click New Remote Site.
  4. Enter "Vex Update Site" for Name and "http://vex.sourceforge.net/update" for URL, and click OK.
  5. Select Vex Update Site in the resulting list and click Next >.
  6. Select Vex XML Editor and click Next >.
  7. Read the license agreement. If you agree, select I accept the terms in the license agreements and click Next > .
  8. Click Finish.
  9. You will be warned that the feature is not signed. Click Install to proceed with the installation.
  10. When the installation is complete you will be prompted to restart Eclipse. I have successfully installed Vex this way without restarting, but you might want to restart if you want to be really safe.
  11. Vex implements the Document perspective, which is the default perspective for the standalone Vex product.

Manual Installation

If your computer is not connected to the Internet, you can still install Vex manually as follows.

  1. Download the file vex-X.Y.Z-plugins.zip from the Sourceforge download page.
  2. Unzip the file into your existing Eclipse installation directory, which should be the directory containing the plugins/ and features/ subdirectories.
  3. Restart Eclipse.
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