qooxdoo basically is a pure client-side JavaScript framework. Its runtime environment simply is an ECMAScript-compliant web browser. No server components are necessary, so qooxdoo should easily integrate into any existing backends.

qooxdoo supports most of today’s relevant browsers, at least the following ones:

• Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5, 6 and 7
• Any Gecko-based browser with Gecko version 1.7 or higher. This includes Firefox 1.0, 1.5, 2.0 and any Mozilla Suite 1.3 or higher. For a complete list of Gecko-based browsers see the wikipedia article on Gecko.
• Opera 8 or 9
• Latest builds of WebKit are supported. It is expected to fully support the upcoming Safari 3.0. Limited support for Safari 2.0 is currently available, but a full support of this browser is not planned due to performance issues and many bugs.

Despite being a client-side framework, real-life qooxdoo applications will certainly try to leverage the power of AJAX technologies and advanced client-server communication. To demonstrate this aspect of Web 2.0 empowered applications various full-featured RPC servers are included (currently Java, PHP). These optional backend components may be integrated into existing backends or serve as an ingredient for a custom backend architecture.

qooxdoo comes in three different “flavors” to account for different user requirements and development skills:

• Pre-generated archive (”build”)
• Source Development Kit (”SDK“)
• Suvbersion checkout (”SVN”)

While the first two options are easily obtained as downloadable archives, the last option requires a subversion client to access the public SVN repository.

This archive runs out-of-the-box including working demos, API viewer and framework. No requirements for build tools have to be met, so no software needs to be installed. It is provided for convenience in order to make qooxdoo easily accessible for offline evaluation. It is not considered a base for actual application development.

If you choose to use either the downloadable SDK (”Source Development Kit”) or a SVN checkout of the latest snapshot from the repository, you will have to manually generate working versions of the included demos, API viewer and the framework. In order to start such a build process, you need to have the following tools on your system:

• bash (a command shell)
• python (a script langauge, at least version 2.3)
• make (a build tool)
• rsync (used for copy processes)
• tar, gzip, zip, unzip (compressors and decompressors)
• gettext (internationalization)
• wget or curl (optional, for downloading additional locale information)
• xsltproc (optional, only for the experimental Build Tool application)

Under a Unix-like operating system (e.g. Linux) those tools are usually pre-installed and can be used right away. If not, please use the appropriate package manager to update your operating system. In some cases a separate ‘devel’ package might also be necessary (e.g. gettext-devel).

On a regular Mac OS X make is not preinstalled, unfortunately. But it is part of the “XCode Tools”, which are distributed on the OS X installation disc that came with your computer. The newest XCode release may be downloaded for free directly from the Apple Developer Connection (requires registration). The gettext tools can be installed via fink. All the other tools required to build qooxdoo are already part of OS X.

For more information, take a look at Installing Fink.

If you work under Microsoft Windows, you will have to add such a Unix-like environment. Fortunately, such an environment is available for free, includes a simple installation and upgrade tool and should not affect any of your existing Windows applications. Even users not familiar with Linux or similar operating systems will find Cygwin very easy to use. All you need to do is executing a few simple commands in the included shell similar to the Windows command shell. Even for complex and full-featured application development those few commands (usually calling make with some arguments) are sufficient. If you feel more comfortable to use the Windows file explorer instead of issuing shell commands for typical file-related actions like copying or unzipping, you may of course just do so.

For more information, please see the article on how to install Cygwin.