First of all you need a java runtime environment installed, eg. from sun/oracle.

Unzip the release archive file to a folder on your local media. It can be something like C:\Program Files\EarthdawnCharacterEditor\. Any new release can be unziped into the same folder, but you have to allow your unzip tool to overwrite exiting files. You may have changed some files in the sub folder "config", for example the file optionalrules.xml. You may want to backup those files before installing a new release.

Now you can start the application by running one of the start scripts EarthdawnCharacterEditor.cmd or EarthdawnCharacterEditor.sh. Or by starting the .jar file directly. In the first case, the command java have to be with in your PATH. In the second case, files ending with .jar have to be linked to the java command.

For Linux only, be aware that a zip-archive do not preserve the execute-attribute of files. So you have to execute chmod +x EarthdawnCharacterEditor.sh, if you want to run EarthdawnCharacterEditor.sh without a shell as prefix.

If your operating system ask you, if you would like to start the Earthdawn-Character-Editor within an terminal window or not, you can chose both. If you start it within an terminal you can also see some status and debug output. But this output is not needed for just using the Earthdawn-Character-Editor.

Unzip the addon distribution archive file to the same folder on your local media, where you have already installed the release archive file before. Unzip will ask you to overwrite some files. You need to overwrite the existing files, because the new files contains additional information needed from the addons. Remember to reinstall the addons when you update the main distribution.

You can safely install the addon distribution while the Earthdawn-Character-Editor is running. But the changes will first become effectively after restarting the Earthdawn-Character-Editor.

The whole database of the EarthdawnCharacterEditor is stored into XML files within the folder "config". You may want to have a look into the file optionalrules.xml. Here you can change the behaviour of the Earthdawn-Character-Editor in specific cases.

• Updated character file format. New files can not correctly read by older ECE version. But older files can still be read by current ECE.
• Bugs
  • Some missed syntax updates from java6 to java7 corrected
  • Some typo were corrected
  • The throwing range of Throwing Axe and Dagger were wrong
  • Weight label was missed within the GUI
  • There was a bug within the OptinalRule DefaultOptionalTalent
• New movement rate modifier which average the DEX based and STR based. This is the new default movement rate modifier
• The discipline select menu is reorganized to have shorter menu length
• Now all thread items from GamemastersGuide can be found in the item store
• Character load method updated. Now files XSD version will be checked.
• Find and Remove possible duplicated discipline talents on multi-discipline-characters. But this may still work not perfect. This issue is still under construction.
• Massively updated HTML view of the character. More content and some optimization for printing.
• New item kind "boot"
• New and updated icons
• Console output modified
• GUI discipline table modified
• New feature EasySkill for discipline Traveled Scholar
• Background images modified
• Updated character portrait library
• Continue to change Spinner classes to ComboBox classes
• New key binding: "N" for "New Character"
• Always keep last character edited after exiting
• CC portraits of the project "Terrible Character Portraits" added.
• OptionDialog now multilingual

• Bugs
  • Karma Ritual was missing in Discipline Journeyman
  • Aligned Skill
  • spellability for circle 2 to 5 were missing for the discipline elementalist
  • Knack Ghost Master had wrong value in attribute "limitation"
  • Small bugs within random character generatore removed
  • Blood damage was not shown within the Ajfel+Mordom PDF
• Multiple menu entries have now key short cuts
• Added Spell Sword
• Multiple SpinnerEditor changed to JComboBox
• Confirmation for exit added
• Confirmation for create new character added
• New menu entry switch window to fullscreen
• New menu entry for editing DefaultOptionalTalents
• Create for every spell an empty spelldiscription, if no spell description exists
• PatternItem enhanced
• If an optional rule is changed, refresh character
• New random character template scorcher added
• Optional Rule ALIGNINGTALENTSANDSKILLS default value is "no"
• Optional Rule AUTOINSERTLEGENDPOINTSPENT default value is "no"
• New Optional Rule KEEPLEGENDPOINTSYNC

Change Log of older versions can be found in the changelog.txt file.