I'm assuming you have a working installation of Java. I'm using Sun's SDK 1.5.0_06 for Linux and for Windows (which are free downloads from here.) but you'll probably find that Blackdown or others do just as well.
As of V0.0.26 there is now support for Ant and this will be the preferred compilation method. There is a README file supplied with the code which should help. Thanks to Steve Kelem for writing the build file! Because we now use Ant, you have to download and install that first. You can find the latest version of Ant here.
Now that both Java and Ant work on your machine, work through the following list.
Download the source file from here.
Extract the source files from CircuitSmith.jar (or whatever the source file is called):
jar xvf CircuitSmith.jar
This will extract the source files and their directory structure into the directory which held the jar file. If you would like it extracted elsewhere, either read the help on jar (just type "jar" at the command line) or move the jar file before you extract.
Now while in the directory you extracted the jar into, type:
ant all Isn't that outrageously simple? This should do a whole ton of stuff which I won't explain.
Assuming it compiles then change to the build/classes subdirectory and type:
java net/sourceforge/circuitsmith/eda/Eda
You should see CircuitSmith pop up in a moment or two.I hope it goes as easily for you as it does now for me. Of course, the Ant stuff is pretty new so I wouldn't be too surprised if you do have trouble. Let me know if you do and I'll try to help.
As a footnote, here's a list of ant targets which should do something.
all - clean, build and jar. This does all you need to get CircuitSmith going.clean - remove all generated filesclean-html - removes all generated html filesclean-xml - removes all generated xml filescleanall - removes all generated files. I have no idea exactly what the difference is here.compile - builds the source into build/classesjar - compiles and then jars the resulting binariesjavadoc - generates javadocs.src-dist - jars up the source code. This is what I do for my file releases.