The Basics (for PC) - Downloading ChucK for someone who has never even heard of "PuTTY" or "Command Prompt"

I am a Mac person, but I will do my best to make this PC tutorial easy to follow and (arguably more important) accurate...


Downloading the files from the site


So, just as in the Mac tutorial, before you begin trying to download ChucK on your PC, you must be able to open up the PC version of the Terminal: Command Prompt or PuTTY (I guess PuTTY is external software, and I have no idea what the difference is between it and Command Prompt, but luckily that isn't the point of this post). For the remainder of this post, I will give instructions for Command Prompt, but they should work on PuTTY as well.


Command Prompt (CP from here on out) can be found by clicking "Start > All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt". Again, once all students have located CP, it's up to the professor whether she wants to use Smith accounts or not. This tutorial will once again assume no accounts are used, however (if they are used), the steps will be identical except for the different directory names.

You should download the PC executable version of ChucK from this link: http://chuck.cs.princeton.edu/release/. The executable version can be found in the Windows section of the page. Directly underneath this link is the PC miniAudicle download. Students should also download this link, but (for clarity) only after they are done downloading the executable version.

A folder should now pop up called: chuck-1.2.1.3-exe[1]. Drag and drop its one folder - "chuck-1.2.1.3-exe" - to the Desktop, and click "OK" if a warning message pops up.

PART I: Making it work on Command Prompt

1.) Open Command Prompt. 

**IMPORTANT: Notice that the line which pops up (with the blinking cursor) says "C:\Documents and Settings\Your Name" (and, obviously, Your Name is replaced with whatever your name is). This is important for accessing the right folders (aka "directories") later. If you ever find that the line you're typing on does not begin with this series, simply type in "cd C:\Documents and Settings\Your Name". If you forget this, you will most likely get an error notice saying that the specified folder/directory does not exist.**

2.) Type in "cd Desktop" and press enter. This is CP's version of accessing the Desktop. To see all of the files on the Desktop, type in "dir". A very cryptic list of all files and folders will appear, and (somewhere in it) you should see the name chuck-1.2.1.3-exe.

3.) Type in "cd chuck-1.2.1.3-exe" to open this folder. You can type in "dir" again if you're curious about what files/sub-directories are in this folder.

4.) Type in "cd bin". For future reference, you can type in "cd Desktop/chuck-1.2.1.3-exe/bin/" to do steps 2-4 in one step.


**The rest of this tutorial is reiterating the Install instructions found here.**


5.) Type in "move chuck.exe C:\windows\system32\" with a single space between each part. If you did this right, no error or warning messages should pop up.

6.) Everything should now be ready to go on CP! Here are two checks I suggest doing to see if everything is in working order:

1. Type in "chuck" in any directory. The easiest way to get to other directories is to type in "cd ../". You should get the following output no matter which directory you are in:

   [chuck]: no input files... (try --help)

2. Go back to the "chuck-1.2.1.3-exe" folder. If you are still in the "bin" directory, just type "cd ../". If you are elsewhere, type "cd ../" until you get back to: "C:\Documents and Settings\Your Name", and then type in "cd Desktop/chuck-1.2.1.3-exe".
3. Type in "cd examples" to open the examples directory.
4. Type in "chuck otf_05.ck". You should hear random tones generated by this ChucK program.

Part II: Downloading the miniAudicle

1.) Click on the PC miniAudicle download on the http://chuck.cs.princeton.edu/release/ page. When you are redirected, click the "download miniAudicle-0.2.0" link at the bottom. When prompted to open or save the file, open it, and a folder should pop up named "miniAudicle-0.2.0[1]". Drag and drop its one folder - "miniAudicle-0.2.0" - onto the Desktop, and click "OK" if a warning message pops up.

2.) Open the folder, and move the icon that looks like this: "=>" in green with an orange square outline - named "miniAudicle" - onto the Desktop (or wherever is best for you to easily access it).

3.) Open up the icon you just moved.

4.) Test it out with one of the example programs from the Chuck Folder. To do this, click "File > Open" and find the examples in your Chuck Folder (this is folder you put on your Desktop). Open any one (or more!) ChucK files that you like.

6.) Back in miniAudicle, click "ChucK > Start Virtual Machine", if the virtual machine hasn't already popped up.

7.) In each of the example ChucK files you opened, click the "Add Shred" button locted at the top left (it's a green plus sign).

8.) If you did it right, you should hear the random tones!




That should cover everything you need to know about downloading ChucK on a PC. If you have any questions, ask your professor/a teaching assistant to help you.


-Julia