# 1.1 Installing and Starting Boa Constructor

Boa Constructor can be run on any 32bit windows platform, and on any UNIX platform which is supported by the GTK+ windows toolkit.

### Windows Installation

- Detailed instructions from wxPython.org
- Install a recent version of Python. You must use version must be 1.52 or later.
- Install the wxPython extensions. The standard installer will install both the wxWindows libraries and the wxPython wrappers. Ensure that the version of wxPython matches your installed Python version.
- Create a directory for the Boa Constructor software, e.g. c:\boa
- Extract the Boa Constructor .zip file to this directory. You may need to install a utility such as winzip extract the zip file.
- Create a shortcut to the file boa.py on your desktop.
- Select the new shortcut to run the Boa Constructor Development Environment.

### UNIX Installation

- Detailed instructions from wxPython.org
- These components can also be installed from binary RPMs.
- Install a recent version of Python. You must use version 1.52 or later.
- If GTK+ is not installed, then build and install it. You must use version 1.2 or later.
- If wxWindows is not installed, then build and install it. Use the version of wxWindows for GTK+ (there are several versions, e.g. the Microsoft Windows version). You must use version 2.1 or later.
- If wxPython is not installed, then build and install it. The version of wxPython must match the version of wxWindows, i.e. 2.1.x for wxWindows 2.1.x.
- Boa constructor requires that the Scintilla editor (stc) and the open GL (ogl) components for wxWindows are installed. These components are distributed in both the wxPython and the wxWindows contrib directories. If in doubt, build and install the versions in the wxPython release.
- Create a directory for the Boa Constructor software, e.g. /usr/local/boa. Extract the Boa Constructor package to this directory. The gunzip program may be required to extract the archive
- Create a symbolic link to boa.py on your path, e.g. `ln -s /usr/local/boa/boa.py /usr/bin`
- In your shell execute boa using the command 'boa.py'

#### You will now see the tools of the Boa Constructor development environment

- The Editor window contains two panes by default. The 'Shell' pane provides access to the python interpreter. If you are new to Python you can go through the Python tutorials using this shell. The screenshot above shows the simple script to create two variables and print the result of adding the variables.