Matrex 2.0 alpha

I published an alpha (unstable) version of the new Matrex 2.0, which adds the possibility to use Matrex as a client/server system.

You can download it from here.

To test it as a client/server system:

• Install this version of Matrex. It is a generic version, so remember that when you start it the first time it will download the graphical library SWT. Only the second time you start it it will really start.
• Install the Matrex Server. The setup file is in the Matrex directory, called matrex_server_2_0.jar.
• Execute rmiregistry. It is the RMI registry server (Matrex Desktop and Server use RMI to communicate). It is part of the Java Runtime Environment (JRE).
• In the Matrex Server directory, execute matrex_server.bat (Windows) or matrex_server.sh (Linux, MacOSX...) to start the server. Check that there are no errors.
• In the Matrex directory start Matrex.
• Follow this to let Matrex open a server project.

You can login as guest (password guest).

If you want to login as a different user, you need to change the config/accounts.xml file in the Matrex Server directory, adding an account element with the userid and password, always setting the encrypted attribute to false.

To become final release, Matrex 2.0 needs the following changes:

• Fix potential issues when a single project in one server is opened concurrently by several users.
• Some operations, like adding functions or functions expression (expression parser) cause the addition or update of several items in the project. Therefore these operations must be done atomically, possibly using some kind of transaction.
• Check that the resources allocated to a client in the server are cleaned up correctly when the client disconnects.

If you find problems with this alpha version, please add a comment to this article.