# Installation - US Alpine Masters ACE Scoring

## US Alpine Masters Alpine Competition Event Scoring (ACES)
Version 8.4

- System Requirements
- Installing the Java® Runtime Environment
- Installing the ACE Scoring Software
- Launching the ACE Scoring Tools
- Troubleshooting
- Uninstalling the ACE Scoring Software

## System Requirements

You should have at least 15MB of free disk space available for installing the ACE Scoring software. The tool installation requires approximately 8MB of disk space, with additional disk space required depending the amount of race result and scoring data you work with.

The ACE Scoring software is based on the Java® software technology and can be installed and run on any system for which the Java runtime environment (JRE) is available. Standard implementations of the JRE for Windows, Mac, and certain Unix platforms can be freely downloaded from Oracle's web site, as described below.

Version 1.8 or later of the Java® 2 Runtime Environment (Standard Edition) is required for the ACE Scoring tools. The J2RE 1.8 installation documentation recommends that you have 130MB of free disk space available.

Note: due to changes in the Java license terms from Oracle, it is strongly recommended that new Java installations to support ACES should use a Java JRE from OpenJDK. ACES 8.4 is supported on both Mac and Windows using the Java 11 LTS release (although some rendering problems have been observed in window sizing and layout on Windows 10 systems with higher resolution screen displays). It is anticipated that the ACES release for the 2022-2023 season will be based on Java 17.

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## Installing the Java™ Runtime Environment

You can download and install Java 8 or Java 11 for either Mac or Windows from AdaptOpenJDK:

- AdaptOpenJDK Java™ Downloads

Select "OpenJDK 8 (LTS)" or "OpenJDK 11 (LTS)" and follow the installation instructions provided by AdaptOpenJDK.

### *** Deprecated: Java installation instructions for Oracle Java 8 ***

You can download and install the latest version of the Java® SE 1.8 Runtime runtime environment (JRE 1.8) from Oracle's Java SE Downloads page:

- Java® Standard Edition Downloads

Locate the Java SE 8 section on the Downloads page, where there are links to the Installation Instructions and Release Notes for the current Java SE 8 release. Click on the JRE Downloads button to download the Java installer.

Note: ACES requires J2SE 1.8. It has not yet been tested on Java 1.9. Developers may wish to install a JDK rather than the JRE - if you know what that means you know enough to decide which version to install for your purposes.

Choose the Java SE Runtime Environment for your system and click on the download link to download the appropriate Java installer.

- Windows 7, Windows 10 - Windows x64
- Mac - macOS (macosx-x64.dmg)

Run the downloaded installer and follow the instructions. You will need to have administrative permissions for your system in order to install Java.

TIP: it is strongly recommended for security reasons that Java be disabled in your Web browser. This is now the default installation option on most platforms but it is good practice to confirm if you are not sure.

### Is Java already installed?

You can check whether you already have Java installed and what version you are running.

Windows
You can determine whether Java is installed by looking for the Java section in your Windows Start menu or using the Add/Remove Programs tool from the Control Panel.

Mac
You can determine whether Java is installed by typing `which java` in a Terminal window. If you have java installed, the path to the executable java program will be reported. You can determine which version of Java is installed by typing `java -version` in a Terminal window.

You can also open the Java Control Panel from your Mac System Preferences to check the version and installation options. The installed version information is available from the `General` tab. Click the `Security` tab to verify that Java is disabled in your web browser.

### Setting JAVA_HOME

### TO DO: add instructions on how and why to set JAVA_HOME (Windows launcher) ###

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## Installing the ACE Scoring Software

The ACE Scoring software is delivered in a compressed file containing the software, along with supporting files for the current season. You can place the `ACEScoring` installation directory anywhere on your hard drive.

### Mac installation

For Mac installation, download the `aces.tgz` installation tarball, open a Terminal window in your downloads directory, and unpack the tarball into the ACEScoring installation directory. Move the ACEScoring directory to the final installation location where you want to run ACES and manage your scoring data. Optionally remove the tarball when installation completed.

    cd /path/to/your/downloadsdir
    tar -xvf aces.tgz
    mv ACEScoring /path/to/your/installdir
    # OPTIONAL: delete the tarball after installation completed
    rm aces.tgz

### Windows installation

For Windows installation, download the `aces.zip` installation file. Right-click on the file and select Extract All... to unpack the ACES release. After unpacking, move the ACEScoring directory to the final installation location w here you want to run ACES and manage your scoring data. Optionally remove the installation zip file when installation completed.

Tip: consider installing ACES on your root C: hard drive. If you follow this standard convention, the ACE Scoring installation directory will be `c:\ACEScoring`. You can then add shortcuts on your desktop to open the ACESData scoring data directory and to launch ACES.

### Initial Structure of the `ACEScoring` Installation Directory

After unpacking the ACES installation file, the ACEScoring installation directory on your hard drive will contain two subdirectories (folders) and several command files for launch ACES, as follows:

- ACEScoring
  - ACESData
  - ProgramFiles
  - ACEScoring.bat
  - ACEScoring.sh

The data files that you work with in the ACE Scoring software are stored in the `ACESData` folder under the top-level ACEScoring installation directory. Initially, the ACESData directory contains only a short `ReadMe` text file describing the purpose of the directory. The files for each race series that you create will be stored in a separate folder in the `ACESData` directory.

The `ProgramFiles` folder in the top-level ACEScoring installation directory contains this Installation documentation and a DocIndex documentation file with links to the User's Guide and other documentation on operating the ACES software. The doc, lib, and Tools subdirectories contain system files for the program; you should not make changes to the contents of these program file subdirectories.

The top-level ACEScoring installation directory also contains helper command scripts `ACEScoring.bat` and `ACEScoring.sh` which launch the ACE Scoring software on Windows or Mac respectively.

NOTE: The ACEScoring installation directory also contains a Windows script named `CreateACESShortcut` which creates an icon on your desktop to launch the ACE Scoring tools, which is the simpler and recommended technique for launching ACES - simply double-click on the `CreateACESShortcut` script to run it. This script is requires that ACES be installed in the standard location `c:\ACEScoring` and that the JAVA_HOME environment variable is set. See additional information below.

### Structure of the ACEScoring Installation Directory After Running ACES

When you run ACE Scoring for the first time, a default race series is automatically created for you and stored in the `Default` directory under the ACESData data directory. You can use the Default race series for experimenting, but generally you will want to create a new race series for the data you intend to work with. The ACE Scoring User's Guide is available from the Help menu of all ACES tools and includes a description of how to create a new race series.

After running ACE Scoring for the first time, a directory named `ConfigurationSettings` will also be created under the main ACEScoring installation directory. This directory contains files used by the ACES tools that you can modify or extend as you work with ACES to customize your configuration.

- ACEScoring
  - ACESData
    - Default
  - ConfigurationSettins
  - ProgramFiles
  - ACEScoring.bat
  - ACEScoring.sh

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## Launching the ACE Scoring Tools

### Launching ACE Scoring Using a Command File

To launch ACES Scoring on a Windows system, simply double-click on the ACEScoring.bat command file in the installation directory (e.g., `c:\ACEScoring\ACEScoring.bat`) to run ACES. On a Mac, run the ACEScoring.sh shell script.

Launching the ACE Scoring tools using the helper command file causes a Windows command line window or Mac Terminal command line shell to be opened, within which the command to actually run ACES is executed. The command line window on Windows is classically a small black window with white letters (although it may have a different appearance on newer Windows systems). Once ACE Scoring is running, you can close the command window at any time - simply click the standard window close `X` box at the top right of the command window on Windows or the red dot at the upper left of the Mac terminal window to close it.

### Creating a Shortcut to Launch ACE Scoring

You can also shortcut icon on your desktop to launch ACE Scoring. This is simpler than using the `ACEScoring.bat` batch file and is the recommended approach for running ACES. However, this technique may require an additional step on Windows to set a system environment variable named `JAVA_HOME` which contains the location of your Java installation.

#### Creating an ACES launch shortcut using the helper script

A Windows script named `CreateACESShortcut` is provided in the `ACEScoring` installation directory which you can run to create a shortcut icon on your desktop to launch ACE Scoring. Navigate to your `ACESScoring` installation directory with a file browser (e.g., the Windows explorer or through the hard disk icon in My Computer) and double-click on the `CreateACESShortcut` script to run it. This will create an icon on your desktop named ACE Scoring to launch the ACE Scoring tools.

NOTE: The `CreateACESShortcut` script requires that the `JAVA_HOME` environment variable is set and that you have installed ACES in the standard location `c:\ACEScoring`.

#### Creating an ACES launch shortcut manually

You can also create a shortcut to launch ACE Scoring manually.

IMPORTANT: In order to create an ACES launcher shortcut, you will need to either know the path to the Java runtime installation directory on your hard drive or create the Windows `JAVA_HOME` environment variable with the path to the java installation. The standard Java runtime installation directory can be found in the `C:\Program Files\Java` directory, with the exact directory name determined by the JRE version you have installed.

To create a Windows shortcut to launch ACE Scoring:

1. Click the right mouse button over an empty location on your desktop and select Shortcut in the New... menu. Perform the following steps in the Create Shortcut wizard:
   - On the first page of the shortcut wizard, enter the command to launch ACES, in one of the following two forms. If you have the `JAVA_HOME` enviroment variable set, enter:
     `%JAVA_HOME%\bin\javaw.exe -jar lib\aces.jar`
     Otherwise, type the pathname to the javaw.exe executable directly if you know it or use the Browse button in the dialog to locate javaw.exe in the Java installation directory and add the additonal the `-jar lib\aces.jar` parameter:
     `"C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.8.X_YYY\bin\javaw.exe" -jar lib\aces.jar`
     Note that the javaw.exe pathname MUST be wrapped in double-quotes due to the space in the name of the Windows Program Files directory name.
   - Click the Next button.
   - Enter `ACE Scoring` as the name of the shortcut.
   - Click the Finish button to complete creating the shortcut.
2. The new shortcut will now appear on your desktop. There's more setup still needed, however (the shortcut wizard doesn't let us set all the properties we need to the shortcut to work properly). Click the right mouse button on your new ACE Scoring shortcut and open the shortcut Properties editor.
   - On the Shortcut properties tab page, the `Target` field will contain the command that you entered in the first step to launch ACES
   - In the `Start in:` property, enter the pathname of the `ProgramFiles` directory in your ACEScoring installation directory (e.g., `c:\ACEScoring\ProgramFiles`).
   - Use the Change Icon... button to browse to the `ACEScoring.ico` file in the ACEScoring installation directory (`C:\ACEScoring\ProgramFiles\ACEScoring.ico`)
   - Click the OK button to save the changes.

You should now be able to launch the ACE Scoring software by simply double-clicking on your ACE Scoring shortcut.

TIP: you can also add this shortcut to your Windows Start menu or pin it to your system taskbar to reduce desktop clutter.

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## Troubleshooting

***UNDER CONSTRUCTION***

[... explain symptoms of PATH problems manifested by not being able to find the javaw.exe program...]

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## Uninstalling the ACE Scoring Software

IMPORTANT: The following step will delete your data files as well as the ACE Scoring software. If you want to remove the program while keeping your scoring data files and reports, be sure to make a copy of the ACESData directory before following the instructions in this section.

To remove the scoring software, simply delete the root `ACEScoring` installation directory on your hard drive. If you have created any shortcuts, such as a program shortcut to launch the scoring software or a file system reference shortcut to the `ACESData` directory containing your race data and report files, delete them as well. (It's not harmful to have leftover shortcuts - they simply won't work anymore - but it's much neater to clean them up if no longer needed!)

If you installed the Java® SE Runtime Environment in order to use the ACE Scoring tools and no longer need the Java technology installed on your system, you can remove it as well after you have finished deleting the ACEScoring files. To remove the JRE components, open the Windows Control Panel and select the Add/Remove Programs tool. In the list of currently installed programs, locate and remove Java.

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### Contact Information

Last update: 02-Apr-2022