Requirements for installation

• Java
  
  J-Bird will run on any platform that supports a Java Runtime environment that is version 1.4 or greater. J-Bird should run on Linux, Mac OS X, commercial flavors of Unix, and Microsoft Windows. The most recent version of Java is usually the best. Java run-times are free.
  
  Mac OS X users need not install Java because it comes installed on their systems. However, the Macintosh Runtime for Java (MRJ) is changing fast, and it is recommended that you use the most recent version available from Apple.
  
  Microsoft Windows users users can install the Java runtime environment available from Sun Microsystems if their systems lack Java 1.4 or greater. The J-Bird installer can also install Java for you, if you are not running Windows Vista. Briefly, the installer will not find Java on your system, and it will ask if you would like to have it installed (approx. a 15 megabyte download). Windows Vista users must manually install Java version 1.6 or later ( http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads.index.jsp). All other Windows users who wish to manually install Java, rather than having having it installed by the J-Bird installer, can use Java version 1.4.2 or later ( http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/download.html). For J-Bird you need to install only the JRE [Java Runtime Environment] (rather than the JDK [Java Development Kit]). At the time of this writing the current Java 1.4.2 Runtime was labeled "J2SE v 1.4.2_13 JRE". It is strongly recommended that you use version 1.4.2_13 or higher (or 1.5.0 or 1.6) rather than 1.4.2_12 or less. The development environment (SDK) is not necessary unless you want to compile J-Bird for yourself.
  
  Linux users can install java run-times from either Blackdown ( http://www.blackdown.org/java-linux/mirrors.html), or from Sun Microsystems ( http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/download.html).
  
  Sun Solaris users can install the Java runtime environment available from Sun Microsystems. Install Java version 1.4.2 or later ( http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/download.html). For J-Bird you need to install only the JRE [Java Runtime Environment] (rather than the JDK [Java Development Kit]).
  
  
• Master list of species
  
  J-Bird is distributed with a master list of species of the world that is maintained by Rolf A. de By. The list is the 1993 version of Sibley and Monroe's birds of the world. If you want to use this list, all you need to do is to select it when you run the database builder to initialize the master list of species.
  
  You can use other lists, but you must provide them. One list is a list of birds of the world compiled by the Commission Internationale des Noms Français des Oiseaux (CINFO) as an Excel spreadsheet that contains family, genus, species, and both French and English common names of 9913 species. It is available from http://membres.lycos.fr/listoiseauxmonde/foreword.htm. Another list is the American Ornithologists' Union (AOU) Checklist of North American Birds. It can be downloaded from http://www.aou.org/checklist/. At the time that J-Bird was released it was capable of downloading from the internet the most recent versions of the CINFO list and the AOU list. Instructions for building these lists are provided later.
  
  J-Bird can build its master species list from more generic sources including a file of comma separated values (CSV), a dBASE file (DBF), a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, a table in a web page (HTML table) and from the results of a query to a relational database. These sources must contain family name, genus, species and common name of one species per line/row/observation in the data source. The species list is assumed to be in the traditional order that is used for checklists. Detailed instructions are given later.