Installing Linx Designer

Online installation

Pre-requisites:

  • .NET framework 4.8 (or higher) must be installed on the system (this will have to be installed on the target system separately).

  • Target system must have access to the internet.

  • In some cases, particularly at enterprise systems, the firewall must be disabled temporarily to allow the fetching of the update packages once Linx is installed. This can be achieved by communicating with the IT System Admins (if this is not possible then follow the instructions for an Offline Installation).

Licensing:

You will need a free license provided by Twenty57 in order to use the Linx Application Designer. The Linx Application Designer License will be sent to your email that you registered with on https://linx.software.

Installing Linx Designer

  1. Go to https://linx.software/

  2. Click on Get Started and fill out the registration form.

  3. Enter in your First Name, Last Name and Email.

  4. Click Download

  5. Run the linx-designer-setup.exe that was downloaded.

  6. Click the Install button

  7. Tick the Run Linx Application Designer on close option and click Close

  8. At this point, Linx will ask you for your license key. Check your email and past the license into the provided box.

  9. Now you are able to create solutions and debug them.

  10. Once you have created a solution and wish to automate it, you will need to have the Linx Application Server. For details, go to Installing Linx Server.

Offline installation

In corporate or enterprise systems, often access to the internet is strictly controlled and restricted for security reasons. This leads to situations whereby software packages cannot automatically download the required updates and ends up creating version syncing issues when issues are addressed in subsequent releases.

For the Linx Application Designer, certain plugin packages are needed to be updated so that bug fixes and feature requests can be released and used by developers. In the case of enterprise systems mentioned above, without internet access, Linx cannot automatically fetch the latest packages. To get around this issue and to avoid the time-consuming approval process that exists in many corporates to get firewall restrictions relaxed, users can make use of the GetLinx Offline Updater. What this enables, is for certain packages to be retrieved off site via a system with internet access and then updated on the target system without access to the internet.

Pre-requisites:

  • .NET framework 4.8 (or higher) must be installed on the target system (this will have to be installed on the target system separately).
  • Offline Linx Enterprise wide license.
  • Internet access to retrieve the Linx packages (This can be on any other computer).
  • In some cases, the GetLinx.exe will be blocked by your system, unblock it if this is the case by right-clicking on the file and unchecking the item marked “Blocked”.

Offline Licensing:

Offline licensing is only available for users who purchase an Offline Enterprise wide license. To find out more please contact us (https://linx.software/contact-us/) or send an email to support@linx.software requesting such.  

GetLinx

This method can be used to both install the Linx applications or Update packages if Linx is already installed.

Steps:

  1. Download the GetLinx Application. (You will receive a link directly from us.)
  2. Once the download has been completed, open the file. This will open the 7-Zip self-extracting archive, choose a desired archive location and extract the files.
  3. Following the successful extraction, open the Command Prompt and follow the below commands.
    1. cd #TargetFolder# -- This is where the files were extracted to, for example cd C:\GetLinx\
    2. The following optional options exist when executing the GetLinx.exe from the command line (to view these you can enter the command GetLinx.exe –help)
      -p Target folder where packages will be saved.
      -v Application version to download. If not specified the latest released version will be used.
      -i Target folder where the installers will be saved
      -l Full path and name of the log file
      --help Display this help screen
      Best practice:
      • It is suggested that you store the packages retrieved with the GetLinx tool in a centralized repository so that if you are part of a distributed team, everyone has access to the same packages. You can do this once you have downloaded the necessary packages by moving them to the target location.
    3. After making your decisions on the paths and log files you can then run the command below (replace the file paths with your chosen file paths or you can just copy the below command and execute it):
      Getlinx.exe
      OR
      GetLinx.exe -p C:\GetLinx\Feeds\ -v 5.15.10755 -i C:\GetLinx\Installers\ -l C:\GetLinx\log
      OR
      GetLinx.exe -p C:\GetLinx\Feeds\ -i C:\GetLinx\Installers\ -l C:\GetLinx\log
      This will start the process of retrieving the relevant packages for Linx to use.
      If you navigate to the archive folder, you will notice that the directories specified in the command will be created and populated.
      Installers (Or whatever you decided to name your folder for -i in the command): These are the installation executables for both the server and the designer.
      Feeds (Or whatever you decided to name your folder for -p in the command): There will be two sub folders namely:
      • App: This contains application specific update data for Linx itself
      • Plugins: This contains the packages used for updating the Linx Plugins

      You will need to copy/move this folder to a location on the target machine that it has access to, this can be directly on the computer or a shared repo.

Installing the Offline LINX Application Designer

  1. After running GetLinx and retrieving the installation files, navigate to the Installers folder (Or whatever you decided to name your folder for -i in the command). Then execute the Linx Designer Setup.exe file.
  2. Click the Install button
  3. Tick the Run Linx Application Designer on close option and click Close
  4. At this point, Linx will ask you for your license key. Check your email and past the license provided by the support team in the box.
  5. Now, in the Linx Application Designer, navigate to File > Configuration. Only if you’re using an Offline License, the following options will be available:
    Application update repository: Point it to the App subfolder inside the location specified in the command as -p
    Plugin update repository: Point it to the Plugins subfolder inside the location specified in the command as -p
    Then click Update.
    You are now able to access the latest plugins and build your solutions.