HW0: Setup

• screenshots.pdf, a PDF file full of screenshots, submitted on Canvas.
• Correct answers to several CodingBat.com Python exercises, which I'll check through my account.

Note that it's important to always use exactly the specified filename when handing in work for a CS class. (Canvas may automatically append a number to your filename; that's okay.)

For most of the steps below, you'll take screenshots and compile them into a PDF. Please put one screenshot on each page of your PDF, and put them in step-by-step order as given below! Note also that renaming a file of a different type (say a PNG file) so that it ends with .pdf does not make it a PDF file!

Here's the easiest way to make a PDF containing a bunch of screenshots:

• On a Mac:
  1. Open a word-processing program (LibreOffice, Pages, MS Word, etc.) and start a new document.
  2. For each screenshot, press Shift+Command+4, then click and drag a region of the screen. This saves a screenshot to your desktop as a PNG image file. Drag the screenshot into your document. (You can also take a screenshot of a particular window by pressing the spacebar instead of clicking and dragging.)
  3. Create a PDF from your document — in most programs, you can do this either by picking File→Save As...; File→Print...; or File→Export.... Make sure you select the highest quality setting for images in your PDF, if given the option.
  4. Once you create your PDF, find the file on your computer and double-click it to open it. Check that it looks right.
• On Windows:
  1. Open a word-processing program (LibreOffice, MS Word, etc.) and start a new document.

  2. For each screenshot, you have a couple options:

     • Press Fn+Alt+PrntScrn. This puts a screenshot on your clipboard.
     • Use the “Snipping Tool” program, which comes with most recent versions of Windows, to take a picture of just a portion of the screen. Copy this picture.

     Whichever option you choose, paste the screenshot into your document. Please crop each screenshot to just show the relevant portion of your screen.

  3. Create a PDF from your document — in most programs, you can do this either by picking File→Save As... or File→Export.... Make sure you select the highest quality setting for images in your PDF, if given the option.
  4. Once you create your PDF, find the file on your computer and double-click it to open it. Check that it looks right.

Our course uses a few tools that I need you to get working on your system. That's what this assignment is all about. Please read over each of the tasks below before starting, so that you know everything that's involved; depending on what you've done before, some tasks may take just a couple minutes, while others may quite a long time. Here are all the tasks:

1. Sign up for our course's Piazza.
2. Install a terminal program and configure your file browser.
3. Get familiar with the command line.
4. Get Java Web Start working for certain demo programs.
5. Install a text editor.
6. Install Python and our various Python packages. Start this step early — it requires registering for a system that may not approve you automatically.
7. Learn some Python basics.
8. Demonstrate your Python knowledge.