Quick Start Guide

1: Get the Kylo Source Code

Three options here:

1. Download the .zip
   By far the easiest option. Download the zip file and extract it wherever you like, such as c:\kylo-browser.
   [ Download the zip file ]

2. Install via Git
   If you're familiar with git, you can make a clone of the public repository.

   $ git clone git://github.com/teamkylo/kylo-browser.git
   

3. Fork it on github
   Select this option if you have a github account and you would like to contribute your modifications back to the community. Here's a helpful guide to forking.

2: Get the XULRunner Runtime

Kylo is a XUL application and requires the Mozilla XULRunner runtime to execute. You will need a special version of the runtime with a patch applied for Mozilla bug #721817. You can read details about XULRunner at code.kylo.tv/xulrunner.

Steps:

1. Download the modified XULRunner package
   Download the XULRunner+Patch zip file.

Note: This is a Windows-only download. The Mac version will be available at a later date.

2. Unzip the XULRunner package to your source directory
   Unzip to c:\kylo-browser or wherever you put the Kylo source code. The root level of the XULRunner zip file contains two directories: build and src. These two directories should be directly under c:\kylo-browser when they're unzipped. You've done everything correctly if you have the following two file paths after the unzip process is complete:

   C:\kylo-browser\build\win32\kylo\application\Kylo.exe
   C:\kylo-browser\src\xulrunner\xulrunner.exe
   

3: Install the Visual C++ Redistributable Package

The modified XULRunner runtime was built with Microsoft's Visual C++ 2010 Express edition. In order to run this version of Kylo, you'll either need to install Visual C++ 2010 Express, or the redistributable package which contains just the libraries. If you don't install one or the other, you will be presented with an error regarding a missing MSVCR100.dll file. See our note on error messages.

[ Download vcredist_x86.exe ]

4: Install Python

The Kylo build script is written in Python. It should work with Python versions 2.5, 2.6 or 2.7. If you don't already have it installed, you can download Python from python.org. The default installer should put python into your PATH. As a quick test to see if everything is installed correctly, open a command prompt and type:

$ python

It should present you with something like:

$ python
Python 2.7.2 (default, Jun 12 2011, 15:08:59) [MSC v.1500 32 bit (Intel)] on win32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>>

Note: hit Ctrl+z to exit the interactive Python console

If the Python console doesn't respond, you might want to reinstall Python or check the Python Windows FAQ

5: Run the Build

Open a command prompt (cmd.exe on Windows - don't use the mingw32 Git console):

$ cd [\path\to\kylo-browser]\tools\build
$ build_kylo.py ..\conf\kylo.conf

This will take the JavaScript, CSS, and XUL source files (and some pre-compiled libraries as well) from the src, components and extensions directories and assemble them into a portable version of Kylo in the build directory. Most of the source files are compressed into a single file called omni.ja - which is like a special *.jar or *.zip file. You can configure which components and extensions get installed by modifying or making a copy of the kylo.conf configuration file under tools\build\conf.

Running build_kylo.py without any command line options will only perform the file syncing and omni.ja operations. C++ source code is NOT recompiled. To read more about the different build options, check out our Complete Build Instructions.

6: Test

A 'portable' version of Kylo is built into the build directory under the following directory tree:

kylo-browser/
  build/
    win32/
      kylo/
        application/
          components/
          extensions/
          xulrunner/
          application.ini
          chrome.manifest
          Kylo.exe
          omni.ja
          ...

You can run Kylo.exe from this directory, or copy everything under application to a new location.

Further Reading:

Complete Build Instructions