From version 1.1 onward, the Trade Profiteer employs the Java Access Bridge to access the commodity information in Puzzle Pirates. As such this will need to be installed in order to use the Trade Profiteer. Don't worry, though, as the Trade Profiteer includes a program that will automatically install this for you, but there are a few things to bear in mind.

Running the installation

The start menu folder for the Puzzle Pirates Trade Profiteer (development version only, currently) contains a shortcut called "Install Java Access Bridge". When you run this, you will see a message box asking you to confirm whether you want to continue. A few moments later, it will inform you that the Java Access Bridge has been successfully installed.

Note: On some Windows versions, when you initially run the script, you may be prompted to allow the script to run using administrative privileges. This is normal and is necessary for the Java Access Bridge to be installed successfully.

It will also create a new desktop shortcut to Puzzle Pirates called "Puzzle Pirates (Trade Profiteer)". Using this shortcut will bring up Puzzle Pirates in such a way that the Trade Profiteer will work with it.

Technical limitations

Every person's system is different. During the development process, I had the opportunity to learn of various system configurations that might interfere with installing the Java Access Bridge. As such, I've had to make a few decisions regarding the installer. Some may be inconvenienced by this, but I felt these requirements necessary to ensure that things will work for everyone.

Java Runtime Environment (JRE)

If you attempt to install Puzzle Pirates without first having a Java Runtime Environment installed on your computer, the installer will bundle version 1.5.0_06 (Java 5 update 6) of the JRE with Puzzle Pirates. This is not supported by the Trade Profiteer, and the installer for the Java Access Bridge will fail in these instances.

For the installer to succeed, you must have downloaded and installed a Java Runtime Environment. The installer will attempt to detect which version you have installed and where it has been installed. To install the latest version of the Java Runtime Environment, Sun Microsystems (the creators of Java) has set up a site to make it easy.

After you have installed the latest Java Runtime, run the installer for the Java Access Bridge. This will copy the files and set everything up for you, along with creating the desktop shortcut as mentioned above.

Puzzle Pirates installation folder

The installer will create a shortcut assuming Puzzle Pirates is installed to your local desktop specifically in the folder "C:\Program Files\Three Rings Design\Puzzle Pirates". If you have moved your installation of Puzzle Pirates, you will need to edit the shortcut to point to the appropriate folder.

To install Puzzle Pirates to your local desktop (versus running it through a browser), Three Rings Design has an installer available for download.

Conclusions

The requirements outlined here should not inconvenience many, and they were made purely for those exceptional systems that might pose problems. If you attempt to install the Java Access Bridge and receive an error message, or if the Trade Profiteer refuses to read in data after attempting to install the Java Access Bridge, check the above requirements.