Palyno is a web application: you just have to run a web browser and enter the url address of a well-defined Palyno server.
However, for various reasons (for example, if your internet connection is weak or is shared by many users), you may want to install a Palyno server on your own computer. This installation procedure is detailed below. This will enable you to run Palyno from your machine, but also from other computers connected to yours through an intranet-type network.
Important note : Palyno was optimized for the free web browser Firefox. The application is highly interactive, which requires dynamic cache management, and needs PNG images to be fully supported by the browser. These requirements will not be met by MS Internet Explorer prior to version 7.
The Palyno server was developed using the Python language. This modern language is compatible with all major operating systems (Windows, Linux, MacOSX ...). A Palyno server can thus be installed on any of these systems.
Do not worry: the following description may seem complicated at first sight, but it merely consists in installing the Python language on your computer (perhaps it has already been done?) as well as some software complements developed by independant organisms or programmers. (All the required elements are freely available on the internet. If you do not find them, we also provide a copy of them in our ressources_web package).
You will find automatic installers for different versions of Python in the "download" section of the official Python website: http://www.python.org . Choose one of the last "stable" version for Windows and take note of the version number (in what follows, we shall consider that you have chosen the "Python 2.5.1 Windows installer" package).
Run the installer. Do not change the default options. Python 2.5 will be installed in the C:\Python25 directory.
(It consists in utility programs for the processing of bitmap images)
Download the "Python Imaging Library 1.1.6 for Python 2.5" package (or the package corresponding to your Python version) from the website: http://www.pythonware.com/products/pil/ . Run the installer. The latter should detect the Python version installed during the previous step and adapt subsequently.
(utility programs for the generation of PDF documents)
Download the "ReportLab_2_1.zip" package from the website: http://www.reportlab.org/downloads.html, then unpack (unzip) it in any temporary sub-directory (for example in C:\temp). Unpacking will create a "reportlab_2_1" sub-directory, containing a "reportlab" sub-directory.
Copy the whole "reportlab" sub-directory in the "site-packages" sub-directory of your Python installation (this will result in a directory tree such as: C:\Python25\Lib\site-packages\reportlab ).
(web server system)
Download the "CherryPy-2.2.1.tar.gz" package from the website: http://download.cherrypy.org/cherrypy/2.2.1/. This is a compressed archive similar to a "zip" file, that you must unarchive in any temporary directory, for example in C:\temp. This operation will create a "CherryPy-2.2.1" sub-directory.
Enter this sub-directory and run the python program "setup.py" with "install" as argument. To do this, press "Flag+R". In the dialog box, enter "cmd" and validate: this opens a terminal window where you can enter the following commands:
cd <path to sub-directory>
C:\Python25\python.exe setup.py install
(Note : under Windows 98, the terminal window opens with the "MSDOS Commands" icon)
(database manager program)
Download the "gadflyZip.zip" package from the website: http://sourceforge.net/projects/gadfly. Unarchive it in any temporary directory such as C:\temp. This creates a "gadflyZip" sub-directory.
Enter this sub-directory and run the python program "setup.py" with "install" as argument. To do this, press "Flag+R". In the dialog box, enter "cmd" and validate: this opens a terminal window where you can enter the following commands:
cd <path to sub-directory>
C:\Python25\python.exe setup.py install
(At this step, you may delete the content of the temporary directory).
The package containing Palyno may be unarchive in any directory. Then launch the script palyno.py to start the server. A window will inform you of the operation status. When starting for the first time, an error may occur because the database does not yet exist. Simply launch the script again and everything will be all right. During the first starting a lot of small image files have to be prepared: this will take some time, but it has only to be done once.
At the end of the starting process, the message "server starting ..." is displayed. From that moment on, the Palyno server is ready and waits for http requests on port 50087 of the local machine. Enter the address: http://localhost:50087 in your web browser (Firefox), and the application will appear.
You can also connect to it from another PC that is in network with yours. Just enter in the browser the URL address of the computer that runs the Palyno server, and the port number 50087.
Example: let us suppose that "Aramis" is the name of your machine in your local network. In the web browser of the other computers, enter URL: http://Aramis:50087 . Instead of its name, you may also enter the IP address of the machine, as for example: http://192.168.0.34:50087 (always indicate the port number).
In a similar way, you might make your Palyno server accessible to everybody through the Internet, but this is another story...
The installation is quick and easy under a recent Linux, especially with Debian or derived (Ubuntu, Knoppix, etc.) distributions. Install the following packages by means of apt-get or synaptic:
Apply the same procedure as described above in step 6) of the installation under Windows.
We have not yet tested it, but it should be similar to the procedure for Linux.