Installation Guide

Introduction

The CAPE installer assumes the installation is performed by a user with administrative priviledge.

The installation of applications can be affected by security policies on your PC. Therefore, you might experience difficulties with the installation procedure described below. We will be glad to assist you (contact information below), but you will need to assist us by knowing something about how Microsoft Windows is configured on your computer. Currently, we only test the installation of CAPE on Windows XP SP2.

For Mac users, CAPE has been tested under the Parallels Desktop for Mac virtualization environment and Apple's BootCamp for Intel Macs. Sorry, but CAPE is not supported on older PowerPC Macs.

Overview

The installer is going to install three applications on your computer:

• ActiveState ActivePython 2.3.5
• Generic Modeling Environment (GME) 7.3.26
• CAPE 2.6

If you are upgrading from an earlier version of CAPE, then only the latter two applications will be installed.

Installation Procedure

The installation of CAPE involves two steps:

1. Downloading the Installer (~40MB)
2. Running the Installer

Downloading the Installer

The first step will be performed with a web browser. If you use Internet Explorer for this step, you will be able to run the installer directly from the browser. Otherwise, your browser will ask you to save the installer to your computer and then you must run it manually (by double clicking it) from where it was saved.

This step begins by going to the CAPE Release Notes page and then pressing the Download button. You can also reach the release notes page from the Adaptive Learning Technologies web site, which provides other useful information about CAPE and eLMS.

You will be asked to authenticate before accessing the CAPE installer. You will have received credentials from the contact person that arranged your access. The login panel (shown at right) requires three pieces of information: a username, a password, and an institution. If your institution, center, or project does not appear on the pulldown list, select 'Other' from the list.

Running the Installer

The CAPE installer automates the installation of all three applications. It begins by collecting some information about you, which you will know or will have been provided. Thereafter, the installer provides reasonable defaults for all of the steps of the installations. You should not need to change any of these choices. Should you choose to make changes, please be sure that you are confident in what you are doing.

A demonstration resource is available to guide you through this step.

Additional Resources

If you are installing CAPE in preparation for attending a VaNTH workshop, then you should also download a set of CAPE workshop materials. Instructions for accessing the materials are available here. These tutorial assets may be of interest to other new users. They are also available in the CAPE Repository.

We suggest that Workshop participants bring along a mouse. CAPE uses a visual language, like (for example) LabView, and it is easier for most people to use a mouse when creating designs in CAPE.

Having Difficulties?

As stated earlier, we will do what we can to assist you in installing CAPE. Please describe your problem and configuration as completely as you can. You can send us an email message by clicking here.

Resources

The CAPE documentation is available online from the Adaptive Learning Technologies web site. This documentation does not cover installation, but does address using CAPE.