Installing Application Designer

Download the Application Designer zip file.

Unzip the file you downloaded and move the resulting folder to somewhere other than your Downloads directory; such as your Documents folder.

To open Application Designer, navigate to the location of your unzipped folder in cmd, and type:

$ grunt

This command runs the script contained in Gruntfile.js, so be sure it is in the current directory.

Windows Users Tip

You will be opening a cmd window and changing your current directory (using the cd command) into this directory every time you use this tool. It is therefore useful to create a shortcut that opens a cmd window directly into this directory:

  1. Open a file browser and navigate to the unzipped directory containing a number of files and directories, including a Gruntfile.js.

  2. Click into the top location bar that displays the nested list of folders to this folder.

  3. Copy this path to the cut-and-paste buffer.

  4. Now, move down to the list of files, right-click.

  5. Select New…, Shortcut.

  6. Type cmd for the location of the item.

  7. Click Next, and then Finish.

  8. Select this newly-created cmd.exe shortcut and right-click.

  9. Select Properties.

  10. Click on the Start in text box, delete its contents, and paste the path to this folder.

  11. Click OK to accept the change.

  12. Double-click the cmd.exe shortcut to open a cmd window.

  13. Confirm that it opens in the intended directory (you should see the full path to that directory displayed to the left of the blinking cursor).

MacOSX Users Tip

Terminal will open a new terminal window if you drag a folder (or pathname) onto the Terminal application icon, and you can also drag a folder to the tab bar of an existing window to create a new tab in that folder.

You have now completed the installation of the ODK-X Application Designer software.