Downloading Card Weaving Software, Patterns, and Tutorial.

You have come to the place where you can download a stand-alone version of the Card Weaver from The Loomy Bin. The software is offered as freeware to promote the art of card weaving. Its use is intended for personal and non-commercial purpose only.

The Card Weaver is designed to be platform independent. That means there should be a version for just everybody's system. The current version is packaged as an application. If, for some reason, you prefer using the software as an applet, take a look at the previous release.

Choose a Version

The Card Weaver is packaged in two different ways to accommodate Windows and Unix users.

	EXE File	ZIP File
	This column is for you ... if you use Windows	This column is for you ... if you use Unix
Version 1.00 Jan 16, 2002	Download installcw.exe ( 101 922 bytes) Double-click on "installcw.exe".	Download installcw.zip ( 81 617 bytes) Unzip "installcw.zip".

Files in the Release

Executing installcw.exe creates:

Unzipping installcw.zip creates:

You can put the folder "TheLoomyBin" anywhere.

Once you see these files on your computer, you can delete the file that you downloaded and save disk space.

Ready ... go

You are now ready to execute the code.

Window users: double-click on startcw.exe

Unix users: execute the command java -jar startcw.jar

Tutorial

There is a new person on the team: Shirley Wilson. Shirley developed a tutorial which walks you through the tool's capabilities, explains what you are looking at, and what your actions should be.

I am very grateful to have Shirley. Not only did she develop the tutorial by herself, she also helped debugging my code and suggested changes.

You can download the tutorial as a PDF document.

New Features- Known Issues

- Weaving screen: Background color

There are five black/greyish/white tiles on the right hand side of the weaving screen. Click on one of them, then another. Watch what happens.

- Design Screen: all text fields are editable.

You can set the number of cards: 2-100 cards
You can set the number of holes: 3-8 holes

- Design Screen: deleting a card is a two step process:

Click on a card:   this marks a card and a red frame shows
Click on marked card:   this deletes it

You can change your mind after step 1 and either mark a different card or leave "Delete Mode".

- Exiting the Weaving Screen:

You have to use the "Exit" from the "File" menu. The X on the upper right corner of the frame is disabled.

- Microsoft virtual machine ...

Older systems may get the error message:

"Unable to start the application. The Microsoft virtual machine cannot be found. Class not registered."

In this case it makes sense to download the applet of the previous release

Now it is Time to Talk about ... Patterns

Patterns? What patterns?

Now that I enabled you to develop patterns locally and save them locally, you have no excuse for not sharing them with us. All you need to do is mail the saved file to the usual address. The saved file is short and it contains all necessary information. Optionally, you can include a descriptive text and any other instructions that I should have. For instance, if you like to have your name listed as the author, your email address, and your website, or none of that.

It is Time to Talk about ... Money

As I said in the first paragraph, this software is freeware. I enjoyed writing the code, learned a lot, made friends in cyberspace, and hopefully helped promoting card weaving - that is my reward. There are a number of volunteers who put in their time to help. I owe them a big "THANK YOU". And I think I owe them more. I like to offer them the knowledge that their efforts are acknowledged and their work was for a worthy purpose.

Here is my proposal. If you like the website, the software, the documentation, if you use it, you may show your appreciation by making a donation to an organization that supports textile arts, education, or what you think has a positive impact on the world.

Let me bring some organizations to your attention: