All Lingua Franca tools require Java 17 or up (download from Oracle). Each target language may have additional requirements (see the Target Language Details page and select your target language). The alternatives for using Lingua Franca are:
The easiest way to get started with Lingua Franca is to install our Visual Studio Code extension from the Visual Studio Marketplace or VSX Registry. To install this extension from the marketplace, launch VS Code Quick Open (Ctrl + P) and enter ext install lf-lang.vscode-lingua-franca. See more details.
Epoch can be installed in any directory. It is convenient to add the installation directory to your PATH. On a Mac, you can drag epoch.app to the Applications folder and open it from anywhere using open -a epoch. To download the current development version of Epoch, replace the following tar and zip files with those from the nightly build.
tar xvf epoch_ide_0.3.0-linux.gtk.x86_64.tar.gz
cd epoch_ide_0.3.0-linux.gtk.x86_64
./epoch
open epoch_ide_0.3.0-macosx.cocoa.x86_64.tar
xattr -cr Epoch.app
open epoch.app
unzip epoch_ide_0.3.0-win32.win32.x86_64.zip
cd epoch_ide_0.3.0-win32.win32.x86_64
.\epoch
Our command line compiler can be installed in any directory. It is most convenient to add the bin directory to your PATH. To download the current development version of the command-line tools, replace the following tar and zip files with those from the nightly build.
tar xvf lfc_0.3.0.tar.gz
./lfc_0.3.0/bin/lfc --version
If you'd like to contribute to Lingua Franca and build our toolchain on your own, you will need to check out our GitHub repository. The toolchain can built using Gradle or Maven, which have integrations with most IDEs. For Eclipse users, we provide an Oomph setup.
git clone git@github.com:lf-lang/lingua-franca.git
git clone https://github.com/lf-lang/lingua-franca.git
./gradlew assemble (the build also performs tests, which takes a long time)
mvn compile (you need to install Maven first)