Using BlueJ at UMBC

BlueJ (http://www.bluej.org/) is a simple integrated development environment (IDE) for Java. It was developed to use in teaching object-oriented programming and Java. As IDEs go, it's relatively simple, which is one of it's advantages. Sophisticated IDEs can be very complex and take a long time to master and you probably don't want to do this while you are learning the language itself. BlueJ is implemented in Java and distributed as an open source system.

We will be using BlueJ so you should either download and install it on your own computer or learn how to use it on the UMBC OIT Lab machines.

Luckily, BlueJ is easy to install on either Windows, Linux, MacOS X, or any computer with a current Java JDK.

Installing BlueJ on your own computer

You will have to make sure you have the J2SE (Java 2 Standard Edition) JDK (Java Development Kit). You can find this for most machines at http://java.sun.com/j2se/. You should get the most recent version. Get the version for your computer and, while you are at it, get the J2SE documentation. If you are running Mac OS X, you should ge the most recent version of J2SE from http://developer.apple.com/java/. If you've installed Java correctly, you should be able to execute the java and javac commands.

After Java is up and running, get and install BlueJ from http://www.bluej.org/download/download.html. You will also want to get a copy of the BlueJ tutorial from http://www.bluej.org/tutorial/tutorial.pdf. When you run BlueJ for the first time, it will look for your Java installation. Assuming it was installed somewhere reasonable, it will be found. If more than one JDK is froun (e.g., both versions 1.4.2 and 1.5) you will be asked which verison you want BlueJ to use be default.

Running BlueJ on the OIT Lab machines

BlueJ can be run on the OIT Lab machines. How to do this will differ depending on the environments.

Windows

The BlueJ executable is in O:\BlueJ\. The first time you run bluej.exe from hhere it will probably display a dialog box indicating that it cannot find any java systems. You'll have to show it where it is by clicking on the ADVANCED button, then BROWSE for a specific Java version -- like C:\PROGRAM FILES\J2SDK1.4.0_01\BIN\JAVA.EXE. Finally, highlight this path in the BlueJ launcher window and launch bluej. Once you've done this, BlueJ will remember this setting for you. If you want to try to play with some of the example packages in O:\BlueJ\examples\ you will have to copy them somewhere where you can modify files, such as the temp device or a removable disk.

MAC OS X

This has not yet been installed on the OIT machines

Linux

This has not yet been installed on the OIT machines.