December 2006

<ul>
<li>Be sure to read <a href="http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute/AboutTab.html">
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute/AboutTab.html</a>
<li>Get the distribution file - version 4.30.51 is the first that should compile
on windows using Visuall C++ without editing.
<li>on linux, run "make win" which renames the files, adds the necessary include files and macro definitions, and copies them to the "win" suddirectory.
This step won't be necessary if you get a special windows distribution.
There is currently a special Windows distribution at 
ftp://ftp.cs.dartmouth.edu/pub/lute called
<a href="ftp://ftp.cs.dartmouth.edu/pub/lute/lute_tab4.3.54-Windows.tar.gz">
ftp://ftp.cs.dartmouth.edu/pub/lute/lute_tab4.3.54-Windows.tar.gz </a>
<li>It seems that you can get Visual C++ "Express Edition" for 
free at http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/visualc/ .
I have not tried this, as I use Visual Studio 2005.
<li>on windows, open the win folder, and copy the files to a folder on the desktop.
<li>If there is a win.exe file in the distribution you may skip the visual
studio steps and go directly to adding the environmental variable.
<li>open visual studio, make a new project, C++, new win32 console empty project.
<li> Go to project/add existing item and navigate to the desktop folder
of source files, and add all that appear, CPP and .h
using "Project/Add Existing Item"
<li>Build the project.  In the build tab select "Configuration Manager" and 
in the active solution window find and select "Release".
Then "Build Solution".  Ignore any "Warnings" - you will see a lot.
Let me know about any Errors that prevent compilation.
The output would be in something like My Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Projects\tab\release\tab.exe if the project  name is tab.
You can drag the tab.exe file somewhere else if you like.


<li>right click "My Computer" select "Properties/Advanced" then to "Environmental Variables"
"User Variables" "New" "Var Name"  TABFONTS.
The value should be the folder where the downloaded source and fonts are.<br>
You can add the location of tab.exe to the "System variables" "Path" value
as well, and then you can just type "tab" to run the program.
These setting take effect when you create new windows after you modify the values.

<li>you will need gsview (1.5 meg) and AFPL Ghostscript (9 meg) installed
to look at the postScript format output files that tab makes.
GS view is nice because it updates the display as soon as you
reformat a file.  I use WordPad to edit the tab file.
I save the file as a plain Text file - no RTF or unicode please!
<li>Please tell me about any technical errors or omissions.  Please
be as verbose as you can and tell me all the details.
I don't expect computer novices will be able to build and install this
program.
</ul>
My thanks to Rainer for his tips!