Installing the SkipBo on your computer

Introduction

My first SkipBo was created more than 20 years ago, and was designed to be installable on a computer. The Web or Android versions came later. The problem is that I cannot keep up with the market evolution, and maintain an installer program which runs on every platform. Especially, I do not have the necessary hardware to test that the installer works on every operating system.

For those who feel like it, I give below a link to download the SkipBo installer. It is nor difficult, nor risky, and this version is more advanced than the Web or Android version.

Required configuration

The prerequisite is that Java is installed on your computer. If you don't know if Java is already present, open a command line window and type:

Be careful to type everything in lowercase letters. There is a space after "java", but don't let a space between the dash and "version".

If a version number appears, then it's ok, your computer is able to handle with Java. If not, then you will have to install Java, for instance from https://www.java.com/en/. For a private use (= not commercial), it's totally free.

Download

With this link you can download the SkpBo installer program:

Remark: a file having a ".jar" extension is a "Java archive". It's a sort of zip which contains the program, and you don't need to unzip it to make it work..

Depending on the settings of your computer, you may be able to double-clic on the jar file to launch the installer. If this does not work, please refer to the next chapter, which explains how to launch a java archive manually.

The installation consists in going through a suite of questions / answers. I advise you to read carefully the comments on the display during this process... But I know that we are all in urgent need to jump in action an read in between the lines!

That's all. If you're having trouble, you will find my coordinates on my contact page, and perhaps I will be able to help you. Have fun!

Some issues you may encounter

The double-clic does not launch the java archive for the installation

In this case, it's necessary to launch the archive with a manual command. Open a command line window, navigate to the folder where you saved the installer file, and launch it typing:

If you don't know how to navigate to the chosen folder, you can type the entire path. For instance:

Not enough rights to create a new folder for the SkipBo

On Linux you may not encounter this problem, but Windows does not like the path suggested by IzPack (which is the software I used to handle the installation). There may be a setting for that but I did not discover it so far.

As a workaround, you just have to manually replace the installation's path, of course keeping the name of the suggested folder. Sample of path which is accepted by Windows (but this is not guaranteed):

Shortcuts not visible after the installation of the SkipBo

The "shortcuts" allow to launch the SkipBo from the applications start menu. If they are not visible, you may find them searching "SkipBo" in the start menu. As result, you should find:

If you don't find any shortcut, you may try to launch the SkipBo manually. For that, open a command line window, navigate to the AnisorSkipBo folder, and type:

If you are not in the correct folder, you can also give the entire path before the name of the jar file.

Afterwards, you may create the shortcut manually, inserting this same type of command in the shortcut. In the AnisorSkipBo folder you will find the appropriate icon for each shortcut (see the explanation below).

Shortcuts existing but only textual (without icon) after installing the SkipBo

It may happen (for the moment on Windows, not on Linux), that the shortcuts were created without an icon. In this case, search for "SkipBo" in the applications start menu, and right-clicking on the shortcut you will be able to change the properties. Among the properties, you will find the "change icon" menu. You will then only have to search for the correct icon in the SkipBo folder: