           README file for the "Browse" GAP4 package by
                  Thomas Breuer and Frank Lübeck
        
To get the newest version of this  GAP 4 package download one of the archive
files (where 'x.y' stands for the highest available version number)
    browse-x.y.tar.gz
    browse-x.y.zoo
    browse-x.y.tar.bz2
    browse-x.y-win.zip      (with text files in DOS/Windows format)
from http://www.math.rwth-aachen.de/~Browse (or from www.gap-system.org)
and unpack it using 
    gunzip browse-x.y.tar.gz; tar xvf browse-x.y.tar
respectively
    unzoo -x edim-x.x.zoo
and so on.

Note that  if you use  a web browser for  downloading the archive  file the
'gunzip' step above may already be done by the browser, although the name of
your file may still have the misleading '.gz' extension.

The  unpacking is  done preferably  (but not  necessarily) inside  the 'pkg'
subdirectory of  your GAP 4  installation. It creates a  subdirectory called
'Browse'.

To finish the  installation it is necessary to compile  a kernel module. For
this you  need a C-compiler  and the  developer library of  'libncurses' (on
Debian based Linux  systems there is a package  called 'libncurses5-dev', on
other Linux/UNIX/cygwin  systems this  will be  similar; otherwise  refer to
http://www.gnu.org/software/ncurses/ncurses.html):

    cd Browse
    /bin/sh ./configure [path]

where 'path'  is a path  to the  main GAP root  directory (if not  given the
default '../..' is assumed).

Afterwards call 'make' to compile a binary file which can be dynamically
loaded into your GAP sessions.

If  you  install  GAP  on  several  architectures,  you  must  execute  this
configure/make  step   on  each  of  the   architectures  immediately  after
configuring GAP itself on this architecture.

-------------------------------------------------------
Optional:

If you (also) want a statically linked GAP which includes the ncurses module
proceed as follows.

- Change to the bin/... directory where your GAP executable was created,
  this contains a script 'gac'.
- Create the new static GAP executable, say 'gap.new' with
     gac -o gap.new -p "-DNCURSESSTATIC" -P "-static -lpanel -lncurses" <your_path_to_Browse>/Browse/src/ncurses.c
  This also works with several kernel modules. For example add the kernel
  module from the EDIM package as well:
     gac -o gap.new -p "-DNCURSESSTATIC -DEDIVSTATIC" -P "-static -lpanel -lncurses" <your_path_to_Browse>/Browse/src/ncurses.c <your_path_to_EDIM>/edim/src/ediv.c
-------------------------------------------------------

Recompiling the  documentation is possible  by the command 'make  manual' in
the Browse  directory (you  need '(pdf)latex' and  the 'netpbm'  tools). But
this should not be necessary.

After installation you can load this package into your GAP session with:

  gap> LoadPackage("Browse");

To get an impression of the content of the package you can run a demo:
  
  gap> NCurses.Demo();
  
E-mail us  if you have any  questions, remarks, suggestions. Also,  we would
like to hear about applications of this package.


                            Thomas Breuer (Thomas.Breuer@Math.RWTH-Aachen.De)
                            Frank Lübeck  (Frank.Luebeck@Math.RWTH-Aachen.De)
