Ant is used as the build tool for Oscar; Ant is similar to the traditional MAKE build tool, but is implemented completely in and designed specifically for Java. Ant is freely available as part of the Jakarta Ant project. Oscar was built using version 1.3 of Ant. To properly use Ant, add the Ant bin directory to your PATH variable and set your JAVA_HOME and ANT_HOME environment variables to point to the JDK and Ant install directories, respectively.
The default build file can also be used to execute Oscar using the current build JAR files by typing "ant run". There are other various targets in the Ant build file, but it is not necessary to execute them individually since Ant only builds what is required each time. The only other important build target is executed by type "ant dist", this creates a new, self-installing Oscar distribution JAR file. Important - building Oscar will overwrite the installed JAR files, so make a back-up copy of the original Oscar installation if you wish to retain it.
For information on using Oscar, refer to usage.html. If you have comments or suggestions, feel free to contact me at heavy@ungoverned.org
Richard S. Hall