Quickstart
Last updated
Last updated
To get going quickly, do the following:
Download Pocket Specs. This project is on Github. Download the entire repository here as a zip file. Unzip the zip file into a new folder. That is all that is needed to "install" Pocket Specs utility. It does NOT do anything to the Windows registry. To uninstall it; just delete that folder. Pocket Specs is a 32bit console program. It would work on both 32bit and 64bit Windows operating system (Version 8 or higher) It could work on Linux or MacOS too -- using the WINE Subsystem. But those OS has not been tested.
If you double-click the executable it will open a new temporary window and give you some useful information and ask you to press Enter to close that window. It will also insert a pithy advertisement too -- That is to help fellow software developers to show useful messages to those who use Pocket Specs. Read more about this advert feature in the appendix.
Make sure that folder (in Step 1) where Pocket Specs has been extracted to, is in the computer's application path. The environment variable "Path" has to contain the folder address. Only then can Pocket Specs be usable from any other folder on the computer. If you do not know how to set the path environment variable; refer to this video:
Run a sample project
A sample project is in the repository: pocketspecscrudsample.zip Extract that zip file into a new folder
cd (change directory) to that folder in step 1 above
Open a console window in that folder. The "black" window that starts when you give the "cmd" command. Tip: You can open the Windows Explorer, navigate to that folder in step 1; and then enter "cmd" in the address bar of that Windows Explorer -- and press Enter. That will start the WIndows console window right in that folder.
Execute the following batch file by entering the following command and pressing Enter:
The output would be produced in a folder called "build" inside the folder you had created for step 3! That's it. It just takes a second or so. NOTE: advertisements are not shown when Pocket Specs is actually doing its work.
Pocket Specs has got a fair amount of capabilities. This short demo just gives you the confidence on the kind of work it can do. When you read the documentation here, you can open the files used in this demo in a text editor (e.g. VSCode or VSCodium or any favorite code editor you like) and then use those files as a reference to understand how to follow along this documentation.