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Readme file for programs TFIN and TSLAB.

This document contains information on installing and running
programs TFIN and TSLAB.  Please read this before installing 
or launching the software.


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Copyright (c) 2004, Kevin D. Cole

Programs TFIN and TSLAB may be copied only under the terms 
of the GNU General Public License, which may be found in 
file 'license.txt' distributed with the programs.  This soft-
ware is distributed with no warranty explicit or implied.

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=================
Table of Contents
=================

This document contains the following sections:

*  Program Description
*  System and Software Requirements
*  Running the Program
*  Obtaining Required Software
*  Known Issues and Limitations
*  Contact Information


===================
Program Description
===================

Programs TFIN and TSLAB produce formal temperature 
expressions for heat transfer problems with the method of 
Green's functions.  TFIN gives steady temperature for fins 
of uniform cross section, and TSLAB gives temperature 
expressions for one-dimensional bodies of uniform cross 
section with steady or transient heat transfer.  

The output temperature expressions are typeset in LaTeX, 
the typesetting standard of the American Mathematics Society. 
The programs are written in Perl/Tk and you need a recent 
Perl interpreter running on your computer to run TFIN and 
TSLAB.  Both Perl and LaTeX are available for most operating 
systems and can be downloaded from the internet.


================================
System and Software Requirements
================================

Programs TFIN and TSLAB will run on any computer running 
LaTex, Perl and Tk.  TFIN and TSLAB have been tested under 
Linux, Windows 2000, and Windows XP, but will probably run 
under Windows 98 or later.  

Requirements for Windows:
	Perl 5.006001 or later
	Tk   800.024 or later
	Miktex (Windows version of Latex)

Requirements for Linux:
	Perl 5.8.0 or later
	Latex (standard with most Linux distributions)


====================
Running the Programs
====================

Linux.
Open a terminal window, and change directories to where 
the programs are located.  Then type "perl TFIN.pl" or 
"perl TSLAB.pl".

Windows.
Double click the program icon.  This should work if Perl
is correctly installed on your system.  Alternately, 
<Right> click on the program you want to run, then select
"open with" -> perl command line interpreter.  Finally, you 
can open a "command prompt" window, change directories to 
where the programs are located, then type "perl TFIN.pl" or 
"perl TSLAB.pl".  


===========================
Obtaining Required Software
===========================

LINUX.
For Linux users Perl and LaTeX are probably already installed.
To check the version of Perl, enter "perl -v" in a terminal 
window.  To check if your version of Perl/Tk is running 
correctly, enter "widget" from a terminal window.  If 
demonstration program "Widget" launches, then programs TFIN 
and TSLAB should run.

WINDOWS.
Windows users will probably have to download and install 
Perl/TK and LaTeX (distributed as MikTeX).  To install 
MiKTeX, download and run the MiKTeX setup wizard:
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/miktex/setup.exe.
Or, visit the MiKTeX Project Page at http://www.miktex.org.

To install Perl/Tk, go to www.perl.org.  Or, go directly to 
the ActiveState site:
http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Downloads/ActivePerl/Source

To check your version of Perl, enter "perl -v" in a command
prompt window (to get a command prompt window, click on
Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> Command Prompt).  To 
check if your version Perl/Tk is running correctly, enter 
"widget" from a command prompt window.  If demonstration 
program "Widget" launches, then programs TFIN and TSLAB will 
run.


============================
Known Issues and Limitations
============================

1.  Latex Viewer.   The output of the programs are shown
in a LaTeX viewer.  The default viewers depend on the 
computer operating system.  Under Linux/unix the default 
viewer is "xdvi", and under Windows (from MikTeX) the default 
viewer is "yap" (which stands for 'yet another previewer').   
If you want to use a different previewer, you must change a 
line in the program (about the 5th executable line of code) 
to set variable $view to the name of your Latex viewer.  
Windows users may need to include the full path of the viewer 
software. (Check what command is required to run your viewer 
software from the "command prompt".)

2.  Files.  Required files and temporary files are stored
in directory "gf_files".  This directory must be located as
a subdirectory of the directory in which TFIN or TSLAB are 
run.  Also, you must have read/write access to this directory.

3.  Latex source code.  The LaTeX source code used to create
the displayed output from programs TFIN and TSLAB is stored 
in temporary files 'tfin.tex' and 'tslab.tex', respectively, which are
located in the subdirectory  'gf_files'.  These files are overwritten 
each time a new temperature solution is displayed.


===================
Contact Information
===================

Kevin D. Cole
kcole1@unl.edu
University of Nebraska

For more information on Green's functions, see the GF Library:
http://www.engr.unl.edu/~glibrary/