                       The ZEUS Agent Building Toolkit
                         Version 1.02 November 1999

                               ---------------
                               GETTING STARTED
                               ---------------

So, the ZEUS toolkit has been installed, and you've updated your system's
CLASSPATH environment variables to include the Zeus JAR files. 
What next?

First time users of ZEUS are advised to start by trying the example agent
applications included with the distribution. The examples illustrate how
to run ZEUS agents, as well as providing subjects for the Visualisation
tools to display.  The Agent Viewer may prove particularly useful in
helping novice users understand how the agents are functioning.

The example applications are contained in their own separate directories,
which can be found in the zeus/examples directory, namely:

fruitmarket  - an agent based trading simulation
pc           - a PC manufacture supply chain
faultdemo    - a reactive fault resolution simulation using rules
multimaze    - a multiple agent version of the above

A short introduction and instructions on how to run each demo can be found
in the README.txt file included in each directory.  In addition, the Case
Study documents provide a guided tour of the sample applications.

A description of how the agents (and their constituent components) work is
provided by the ZEUS Technical Manual. This also explains the conceptual
basis of ZEUS agents, and the levels of abstraction present within
the toolkit class package.



Using the Agent Generator
-------------------------

Once you feel you comfortable with how the example applications work you may
experiment and edit some of the the agents or tasks using the Agent Generator
tool.  This is the best means of learning how to build agent applications,
(rather than trying to implement a completely new agent application from
scratch).

The ZEUS Agent Generator tool is started by entering the following command:

java zeus.generator.AgentGenerator
(there is a PC batchfile called zeus.bat containing the same command, 
PC users might want to copy this into a directory referred by %PATH%)

If ZEUS has been installed properly a window should appear entitled 'ZEUS
Agent Generator'.  If not, your Java runtime environment probably can not
find the class files that implement the Agent Generator, take another look
at the installation instructions, and then recheck your CLASSPATH settings.

Instructions on using the ZEUS Agent Generator can be found in the ZEUS
Application Realisation Guide document.


Have fun!



