P4 Settings Help Page

Polynomial Planar Phase Portraits

THE MAIN SETTINGS WINDOW

The settings window can be reached from the main P4 window, by pressing the

button. From within the "P4 About box", you can access the main settings window.

The settings that you can set here are to be set after installation. When you exit P4, these settings will be saved (in the windows version using the windows registry, in the linux version using a hidden settings file).

Most users will not have to edit these settings, except maybe for the setting in the field

(see below).

In the field
you can enter the base installation path. This base installation path should have subdirectories like "help" and "bin". P4 uses this path to access the help files, to find the executables "lyapunov.exe" and "separatrice.exe", and to find the P4/Reduce and P4/Maple code. The most convenient way to alter this field is by pressing the button and browsing towards the installation directory.

Normally, P4 automatically detects the correct path.
In the field
you can enter the sum-table path. This location should be a writeable location. P4 uses this path to store its sum-tables (during calculation of lyapunov coefficients). This tables contain lists of sum-decompositions of positive integers in N parts. Since for large values of N these tables are hard to compute, they are stored on disc so that they only need to be computed the first time they are needed. The most convenient way to alter this field is by pressing the button and browsing towards the directory of your choice.

By default, P4 defines the sum-table path as a subdirectory of the installation directory. Change this only if the users of P4 do not always have write access in the installation directory. In that case, it is most convenient to use the system's temporary directory as the sum-table path.
In the field
you can enter the system's temporary path. P4 uses this to store temporary files. Users of P4 need to have write access to this directory. The most convenient way to alter this field is by pressing the button and browsing towards the directory of your choice.
In the field
you can enter the location of the command-line version of a recent maple installation. The most convenient way to alter this field is by pressing the button and browsing towards the executable. On Windows, you can find the binary files of Maple in the subdirectory "bin.win" of the Maple installation. Up to version 9.5 the command line version was named "cmaple#.#.exe", where #.# contains the version number. From version 10 the command line version is simply called "cmaple.exe". On Linux, just enter "cmaple" in this field, and use the Linux command line to define cmaple as a symbolic link towards your version of maple.
The "reduce executable" field is not relevant for the Windows version of P4. On Linux, just enter "reduce" (which is the default choice).

After you have entered the settings, press the

to confirm the changes. Press

to cancel any changes.

The

button will reset the settings. In particular P4 will then try to locate Maple automatically by inspecting the windows registry.

Note: It is advised to try to study a trivial vector field, like {xdot=-y, ydot=x}, using P4, in order to test the installation.

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