The first thing you need to know is that Caribou is not a mud client plug-in. It operates independently of your mud client but reading log files that you generate. This means that you need to be able to create logs in real-time to keep Caribou reports current. If your mud client does not provide the ability to write real-time logs, turn back now. I understand that KMud, ZMud, WinTin, and WinTin 95 work well, but that JMC does not. Your mileage may vary. So how do you run it? First, you will need the Java Platform. If you are not familiar with it, you may already have it installed in order to handle applets in your web browser. If you do not have it, you can download the latest Linux, Windows, or Solaris version free from http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/download.html. If you are running another operating system, please contact your OS vendor or ask me and I will point you in the right direction. What you want is the J2SE v 1.4.x Java Runtime Environment (JRE). You do not need J2EE, the J2SE SDK, or the NetBeans IDE. So now that you have the JRE installed, you should be able to run caribou by clicking (or doubleclicking, depending on your windowing environment) on the caribou-bin-x.x.x.jar file (where x.x.x is a version number such as 0.5.4). Optionally, you can also run caribou at the command line by typing java -jar /path/to/caribou-bin-x.x.x.jar. If you did not include a log file name, Caribou will prompt you to select a log file as shown below:

Note that you should select a live log that your mud client is currently updating unless your goal is to relive past adventures. Once you have selected a log file, Caribou will open a number of report windows as shown below:

That is it; you are good to go. If you have questions or encounter any problems, please contact me at davidcorpstein@corpstein.org.