''Under construction''__NOTOC__
This page is currently being written - please find your way back here shortly. __NOTOC__If you're interested to give Box Of Stops is designed to run on the a test drive without a Raspberry Pi, which is a great size for plugging into a musical keyboardhere are some instructions on how to set it up on Windows. Alternatively, and comes with everything Box Of Stops needs builtyou may be interested to boot the PC from a USB stick -inmore details [[Running on a PC|here]].
It is also possible to install The key differences between running Box Of Stops on the Pi and Windows. are:* It is noticably a bit slower under Windows (see the topic on [[Latency]]). Especially with large dramatic chords, Windows isn't quite as responsive, but it is still quite generally playable * Form factor - certainly good enough for the size of the Pi is much more suited to creating a test drive.standalone instrument* Also when setting up, the install on the Pi is simpler
Because Unlike the Noobs operating system on the Pi, Windows doesn't come with everything Box Of Stops needs built in, . This means you will need to install a few other dependencies first:
* [[#Installing Java|Java]]
* [[#Installing Python|Python]]
* Finish the [[#Setting up|set up]]
Once you are installed, instructions about for [[#Starting|starting]] and [[#Stopping|stopping]] are below.
For reference, Box Of Stops is un-fussy about the version of Windows you use - Vista or later is fine. And the machine spec needed is fairly modest - it's likely your Windows install has at least the spec of a Raspberry Pi. Due to the multi-threading in Box Of Stops, we recommend at least a dual-core processor, but even 1Gb of RAM is fine.
== Installing Java ==
[[File:Java-download-firefox.png|300px]]
After that, please install Java using the default options. The only exception to this is that at the moment the installer kindly offers to set Yahoo as your homepage and default search provider - there is no need to accept this.
[[File:Java-install.png|300px]] [[File:Java-yahoo.png|300px]]
== Installing Python ==
Similarly, if you don't already have Python, this can be downloaded for Windows from [https://www.python.org/downloads/windows/ here]. The latest version of Python 3 is recommended, but please download the 32-bit version for compatibility with because [[#Downloading PortMidi|PortMidi]] belowis 32 bit, please ensure you download the 32 bit version of Python. I.e. the "Windows x86 executable installer" instead of the "Windows x86-64 executable installer".
Please ensure Also, when installing Python , please ensure that you tick the option to add it to your PATH:
[[File:Install-python-on-path.png|300px]]
== Starting ==
From To launch Box Of Stops, please start a command prompt[[Windows Command Prompt]] and type the following commands:
cd C:\boxofstops
java -jar boxofstops.jar
(where C:\boxofstops is the directory you copied <tt>portmidi.dll</tt> and <tt>boxofstops.jar</tt> to in the [[#Setting up|previous step]]).
When you first launch Box Of Stops on Windows, you may get a prompt from Windows Firewall. Naturally, you will need to ask it to unblock network connections, to allow Box Of Stops to receive a connection from a web browser:
[[File:Windows-firewall.png|300px]]
This will then take a moment to launch, after which you can [http://boxofstops.com/using connect] in the normal way.
Notes:
* If you see a message about being unable to allocate an address - <tt>java.net.BindException: Address already in use: bind</tt> - please read about changing the [[Server port]]
* At the moment there is no option to [[Auto start]] Box Of Stops under Windows
== Stopping ==
To stop Box Of Stops on Windows, please either:
* Press Ctrl+C on the command prompt window. This will return you to the command prompt
* Or just close the command prompt window
Both of these approaches are fine to let Box Of Stops perform a controlled stop. This allows it to release any Midi connections that were opened, and close down the related Python process that was running in the background.