VDCT installation and documentation problems...

["Kevin M. Peterson" <kmpeters@anl.gov>]

I am trying to get VDCT running on a Windows 98 machine that originally had 
none of the
components that are required for VDCT.  I have been following the direction 
on the following
website:

http://www.cosylab.com/visualdct/builds/VisualDCT/2.3.1240/doc/DOC-Java_Installation_and_Build_Process_of_VisualDCT.html

I found the directions extremely difficult to follow due to a lack of 
important information.  An
example is the explanation of why 3rd party software is needed.  It's nice 
to know that 3rd party
software is needed for the build process and for program execution, but it 
would be significantly
more helpful to have a list of the software that is needed for each.

At other points in the documentation information was simply missing.  In 
the third instruction
of the "3. Eclipse Installation" section it says to define two variables 
but only one is mentioned.
The fourth instruction of the same section says that the necessary Eclipse 
extensions are
available on the Cosylab web page but I was unable to find them.  Links to 
necessary pieces
of software would be helpful.

On the topic of links, in the "Dependencies" section of

http://www.cosylab.com/visualdct/builds/VisualDCT/

there is a link to what is supposedly VisualDCT-Common, but the link does 
not work.  I had to
search for it on google to find a site that had something that I could 
download.  I ended up
downloading version 1.2 of VisualDCT-Common.

So with my complaints about the documentation aside, I still do not know 
how to get VDCT up
and running.  I have the Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition and the JUnit 
Testing Framework
installed and working correctly.  I have the other pieces of  "required" 
software (Styler ANT Task,
MySQL JDBC driver, VisualDCT-Common, Eclipse, and Apache Ant) installed but 
I do not know
if they are installed correctly.  When I run VisualDCT.jar VDCT appears to 
start.  I am prompted
to choose an Epics database and when I choose one, all my pretty windows go 
away and I'm
left staring at my background.  I'm pretty sure that isn't the desired 
behavior.

Which software do I need to get VDCT running?  Do I need to build VDCT or 
are the build instructions
just provided in case I want a non-standard installation?

Or better yet, how do I install VDCT if I know nothing about the software 
on which VDCT is dependent?
This seems to be the question that the "Java installation and build process 
of VDCT" should answer,
but since it fails to do so, I am left extraordinarily confused.

Thanks for your time,

The extraordinarily confused Kevin Peterson