How do I run Athena Player?
There are a few ways to run the Athena Player application, below are some details on the methods and how they differ:
CD Based Package Options
- Autorun
On Windows machines, the action of putting the CD in the computer's CD drive will cause Windows to prompt you whether you want to run the course. If this behaviour has been disabled in Windows, the application will need to be launched manually
- Running the Application exe
In the root of the CD you'll find a file called, "AthenaPlayer.exe", this can be double-clicked to run the software on Windows based machines. Using this executable runs Athena Player using the bundled Java Runtime Environment (JRE); this has the advantage that you don't need to have Java installed on the local machine to run the program. The downside to this method is that the JRE will need to be loaded from the CD, which will take longer than using an installed version of Java. If you copy the application to the local machine though, the start time of the application will be improved, instructions on this can be found here
! Note: The volume license version of Athena Player has the suffix VL on the file name
- Cross Platform Launcher
On all platforms (Windows, Mac or Linux), if the JRE has been installed on the client machine, the user can launch the application by double clicking the file, "AthenaPlayer.jar", it is located in the root of the CD. This launch method has the advantage that it will be quicker to load as it will utilise the local Java installation.
- BASH Script
For UNIX based platforms (Mac and Linux), a BASH script is supplied that allows the user to launch the application from the command line. The script can be found in the root of the CD and has the name, "RunCourse.sh"
Download (Webstart) Options
- Desktop Shortcut/Menu Shortcut
When you install the download edition, a shortcut will be placed on the desktop and on the Start Menu (for Windows); double clicking the shortcut will launch the application
- Shortcut to the JNLP
When the software was originally installed, a small file witht the extension JNLP will have been downloaded. If you locate this file in your download directory, you can double-click it to start the application (as it will already have been installed)