TICS Client Installation

To run the TICS client, the following tools/environments must be available on a client machine:

• Local build environment.
• Local SCM tool installation.
• TICS client setup program.

1. Make sure you have administrator rights.
2. Run the TICS installer prog ram. The installer has the following name: ticssetup-<version>.exe. In case any options are set in a setup .ini file, the installer will not ask for those options. E.g., the location of the TICS server. It is important to run the installer from its original location since it may depend on any present setup .ini file.
3. Optionally, manually install one or more of the following TICS plugins for your IDE(s).
   • Eclipse
   • IntelliJ
   • Visual Studio
   • Visual Studio Code
   • Visual Slickedit
   • Tasking

Installing a Stand-Alone Client

By default, the TICS framework is installed as a client/server application, where the executables, configuration and third party code checkers and rule files are installed on the file server. The client only contains the add-ins for the various IDEs and a thin application wrapper that starts the client executable from its location on the server.

Installation steps

It is also possible to have a client installation that allows one to work off-line. This requires that TICS client is installed on the workstation.

There are a few additional steps required as described below.

TICSOFFLINE environment variable

Select a location on the local machine where to install the stand-alone client. In these instructions, C:\ticsoffline is used as an example.

Set the environment variable TICSOFFLINE to the local configuration directory. For example, TICSOFFLINE=C:\ticsoffline\cfg.

Client directory layout

The directory layout on the client will be as follows:

bin
cfg
chk
rules

For example:

C:\ticsoffline\bin
C:\ticsoffline\cfg
C:\ticsoffline\chk
C:\ticsoffline\rules

This directory layout is fixed. TICS will create any of the missing subdirectories above when running with -synchronize.

Populating the client installation

To populate the off-line installation, a connection to the TICS server must be available. With the -synchronize option, the required binaries, configuration files and third party code checkers and rule files are copied from the file server to the client. This requires that the TICSOFFLINE environment variable is properly set.

Note that the synchronization process examines all files on the file server in the directories that contain the binaries, configuration files, code checkers and rule files. (By default, these are the 'bin', 'cfg', 'chk' and 'rules' directories.) Therefore, this may take a while. It is best to only occasionally use the -synchronize option to avoid having to wait a lot.

After successful synchronization, the client is able to run locally, without any dependencies on the server. Note that it is not possible to run with database connection if the database server is not accessible.

Every time the client is connected to the server, one can use the -synchronize option to update the off-line installation with the official file server installation.

Running the off-line client

If connection to the file server is available, running the client is identical to running a normal client installation: the file server installation is used.

If no connection to the file server is available, the client uses the installation as pointed to by the TICSOFFLINE environment variable.