Requirements

You need a java "runtime" to make a java program run.

Java webstart method

Try just clicking on my jdrilljava webstart link, or copying it to your "java webstart" program, if you have one. It MAY work for you as simply as that. Unfortunately, odds are, your fonts will be messed up,and you will have to follow the manual instructions one way or another.

The manual way

I now have instructions for getting kanji display to work with both jdk1.1, and jdk1.2. The instructions will probably work with later versions also.

To get a java "runtime" for solaris or ms-windows, go to javasoft's JRE pages.

If there is a choice of two versions, be sure to get the full international version.

If you are running MS-windows, you also have a choice of IBM's JVM. It's currently the fastest. [Hmm. although hotspot may now have caught up, but hotspot is jdk1.2 only].
For other OS's, try getting a JDK or JRE from the Third-party ports page

Kanji display

JDrill relies on JVM, and thus your operating system, to handle display of kanji fonts. Unfortunately, this turns out to take a bit of work. Ideally, javasoft should walk you through it. But the official Sun Javasoft page on how to display Japanese fonts, isn't exactly user-friendly, or even always accurate. So here's my own guide for the systems I know about. Please email me with information about other systems.

The cheat way, is to pretend that you are running in japanese locale, just for this one program. A way to do this on the command line: 

java -jar -Duser.language=ja jdrill2_3_1.jar

However, to get japanese and english display working for ALL java programs on your system, choose from one of the following guides:

DOWNLOAD

There are two different distributions to choose from:
The grab-and-go distribution, and the regular one. People new to java should get the regular one.

Regular easy-install

If you are comfortable with java, you can get the grab-and-go jar file. Download the Direct-run jarfile.

If you are on something like a recent Mac, then you should be able to just double-click the jar file.
For MS-windows systems, if doubleclicking doesnt work, edit the jdrill.bat file to have the correct path to your java runtime, and double-click that.
Otherwise, you can run the program from the command line with something like 

(jre 1.1 style)
jre -cp jdrill2_3_1.jar jdrill
OR 

(jre 1.2 style)
 "jre -jar jdrill2_3_1.jar"

That's the quick start. If you want more information, you can go ahead and read the next section. The contents are identical. They're just packaged slightly different.

By-hand install

If the easy install doesnt work for you, here's some details on how to do it "the hard way". The following assumes you have had difficulty using the .jar file above.

First, download The subdirectory jarfile, so that you can more easily extract the files to their own directory.

(You may have to shift-click on the link, if you get garbage on your screen, warnings about security, or any other strange happenings)

The archive is in "jar" format. It's the official archive format of java. But don't worry, it's pretty much compatible with "zip". Just make sure you have a RECENT version of winzip, or whatever alternative you use. Older versions don't always work.
So, extract the files, read the README, and have at it!

If you have "jar" installed on your machine, you can use that to extract the files, with jar xvf jdrill2arc.jar. Otherwise, as noted, use something that can read "zip" files.

Another important tip:. On ms-windows machines, use wordpad, not notepad, to read the various README type files.

Start it up!

How you run jdrill depends on your "java runtime". If you are using Javasoft's runtime under unix, you would use 
% cd jdrill
% jre -cp . jdrill
For MS-windows derived systems, you'll probably want to edit the .BAT file that comes with jdrill. It basically does the same thing as the UNIX commands listed above, but you can double-click on the .bat file to make your life easier.

For older Macintosh systems, you may have to use something called "JBINDERY", which is part of the MRJ (Macintosh Run-time for Java). This tells the system, "yes, use this file as a java file"

I do not have any information for other systems. If you want to give me details, I'd be happy to include them here for other people.

Full dictionary

The standard jarfile only comes with a reduced dictionary. For details on how to download and install the full dictionary (which comes from a different site), please see the "Using jdrill" page

Known Problems

If jdrill fails to run, with an "UnsupportedEncodingException" error somewhere, you have the wrong version of the JRE. Go to the link mentioned above, and download the international version. You'll now probably want to look at my guide on using jdrill.

Important note

jdrill only gets distributed with a fraction of the full dictionary, because it is rather large, and I am not the one who maintains the dictionary. See the guide above for details on getting the full, free dictionary.