<li>You should be able to use any OS to interact with expo, but it's a bit simpler to get set up using Linux or MacOS, rather than Windows, just because the core stuff will already be installed. You can't yet do everything on a phone, but you can do some things.</li>
<li>The <i>expo laptop</i> uses <ahref="https://www.debian.org/intro/about">Debian</a> with the <ahref="https://computingforgeeks.com/how-to-install-cinnamon-desktop-environment-on-debian/">Cinnamon</a> interface, but pretty much any Linux system works fine. This handbook does assume that you are using apt - the Debian package manager - which is good for all Debian-derived Linuxes such as <ahref="https://ubuntu.com/">Ubuntu</a>. Old, slow machines without much memory can be very effective with <ahref="https://xubuntu.org/">Xubuntu/xfce</a>. If using a Red-Hat-based linux you'll need to work out the equivalent rpm/yum commands.</li>
<li>Windows machines can do almost everything needed (rsync is a problem), but some useful software has no Windows version and you will need to find your own equivalents. There are also some 'gotchas' to look out for due to filesystem differences (e.g letter case). If you have the choice, use Linux.</li>
<li><ahref="winlaptop.html">A Windows laptop for expo</a> - a page of more detailed instructions for those who are definitely going to be using a Windows PC or laptop.</li>
<p></a>Long-standing Expo policy is to use open tools and protocols so we can retain control of our own data over the long term. And not to require expo-goers to sign up to external services or spend money on software.
So we use <ahref="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open-source_software">FOSS software</a>.
You can use other software on your own machine if it is format-compatible and exports data in the formats we want,
<li><ahref="https://github.com/CaveSurveying/tunnelx">Tunnel</a>: 2.5D cave drawing program based on Survex-compatible data which can also read PocketTopo files. (Generally called 'tunnel' even though the project and executable is actually 'tunnelx'.)
<li><ahref="https://sourceforge.net/projects/viking/">Viking</a> - an alternative to GPSprune. The <ahref="https://github.com/viking-gps/viking">code</a> is on github.
<li>python, if you are extending troggle or the scripts in expoweb/noinfo/ - already installed on Linux <imgsrc="https://www.python.org/favicon.ico"width=64hspace="20"align="right">
<li><ahref="https://github.com/patrickbwarren/qgis3-survex-import">qgis3-survex-import</a> - plugin to import/export survex .3d files</li>
<li><ahref="http://www.thomas-holder.de/projects/inkscape-speleo/extensions/">inkscape-speleo</a> - plugin to import/export survex, therion and pockettopo files to the drawing package inkscape.
<p>Nearly all our Austrian surveys have beeen produced using Tunnel (or were hand-drawn) but many smaller caves and some areas of SMKsystem are done with Therion because Therion does elevations and Tunnel doesn't.</p>
<p>Note that on a Debian/Ubuntu machine you should normally install the versions that come with the distro, not be getting things fromthe above sites</p>
<li>Your favourite text editor. gedit is installed on the <em>expo laptop</em> and has syntax highlighting for .svx files too. This works with <ahref="https://survex.com/changes.html">all GtkSourceView-based editors</a> (thanks to Phil Withnall).
<li><ahref="https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/latest.html">PuTTY</a> including pagent. Version 0.73 was released on 2019-09-29. You need this to generate and to use ssh keys on Windows. Otherwise none of git, mercurial, scp, ftp or rsync will work. It includes command line tools ssh, scp (pscp) and sFTP (psftp).
<li><ahref="">VS Code</a> is a free (but not FOSS) editor with in-built git capability and plug-ins which render git branches graphically. Also available for Linux.
<li><ahref="https://notepad-plus-plus.org/">Notepad++</a> or any other syntax-highlighting code editor for HTML and python such as <ahref="https://www.aptana.com/">Aptana Studio</a>. Configuring these to syntax-highlight .svx files has yet to be done.
<p>A short note about the phenomenon of VS code is in order. In case you didn't know, by 2018 over <ahref="https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2018">a third</a> of software developers used this editor for their Linux and Windows work and it is undoubtedly more now. Not for beginners.
<li><ahref="https://www.termius.com/">Termius</a> - command line to create a key for your phone, to ssh (and mosh) login to the expo server. To get sftp you have to buy it.
<li><ahref="https://sites.google.com/site/speleoapps/home">TopoDroid</a> makes cave surveys with the DistoX.
<li><ahref="https://sites.google.com/site/speleoapps/home">Cave3D</a> is a Therion 3D viewer.
<li><ahref="https://sites.google.com/site/speleoapps/home">ThManager</a> organizes single surveys, exported by TopoDroid, into Therion projects encoded by Therion "thconfig" files.
<p>You need to <ahref="keyexchange.html">register a key with the expo server</a> to get upload (i.e. read/write) access. Do this first, Without it none of git, mercurial, scp, ftp or rsync will work.
<p>On a Windows machine you will need to configure pageant (the putty authentication agent)
to <ahref="https://blog.shvetsov.com/2010/03/making-pageant-automatically-load-keys.html">run at startup to load your key</a>. Note that you are loading your <em>private</em> key, the .ppk file, into pageant and that this key never leaves your laptop.</p>
<p>The above gets TortoiseHg and the command-line PuTTY tools (ssd, sftp, pscp) running, but doesn't get Cygwin rsync working. You might like to try <ahref="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/23517023/rsync-from-windows-to-linux-using-puttys-pagent-authentication">this</a> (untested).</p>
<p>When using Windows please, please be <ahref="http://expo.survex.com/handbook/survey/getin.htm#filenames">excessively careful when naming files and survex names</a> and be <ahref="../manual.html#quickstart">exceptionally careful when using rsync</a>.
<li><ahref="../../documents/tunnel-loefflerCP35-only.pdf">Introduction to using Tunnel</a> - article by Dave Loeffler. This is really good and should be read first.
<li><ahref="http://expo.survex.com/expofiles/tunnelwiki/wiki/pages/Tunnel.html">The Tunnel tutorial</a> - installation notes and a wiki of examples and tutorials
<li><ahref="https://github.com/CaveSurveying/tunnelx">Tunnel - master copy since August 2019</a>. This is where the software is actively developed and is the most up to date copy, but the documentaiton is not as complete as in the other locations.
<li><ahref="https://bitbucket.org/goatchurch/tunnelx/src/default/">bitbucket.org/goatchurch/tunnelx</a> - documentation and old source code in the bitbucket repository system.
<ahref="https://webchat.freenode.net/#expo">#expo</a> - public. An open-access <ahref="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat">
open-access IRC channel</a>
(ephemeral, not archived) for real-time discussions about everything but mostly software people. If you are having trouble using the software try here first.
<li><ahref="https://github.com/join">Github</a> - You'll need an account if you want to use this.
<li><ahref="https://github.com/CaveSurveying/CUCCexposurveyissues/issues">Expo issues list</a> - Issues with data reduction for recent expos and software updates for tunnel
<li><ahref="https://bitbucket.org/product/">Bitbucket</a> - create an account to help develop tunnel. <imgsrc="https://tortoisehg.bitbucket.io/img/bitbucket-icon.png"width=64hspace="20"align="right">
<p>When maintaining the HTML files in the expo handbook a link-checker is useful to report bad URLs (links to external sites go bad regularly) and to find orphaned pages with no in-links. The website has <ahref="https://www.klebos.net/subdomains/keldos/LinkScans/TUNNEL-wiki-link-report.html">about 2,000 internal URLs</a> in just the Tunnel wiki section alone.
<li><ahref="https://www.brokenlinkcheck.com/">Online brokenlinkcheck tool</a> - does not install on your laptop. Limited to 3,000 pages.
<li><ahref="https://www.deadlinkchecker.com/website-dead-link-checker.asp">Another online brokenlinkcheck tool</a> - does not install on your laptop. Limited to 2,000 pages but breadth-first rather than depth-first, so it covers a different chunk of the expo website.
<li><ahref="https://www.drlinkcheck.com/account/subscriptions/1/projects/1/overview">Yet another link-checker</a>, only 1,500 pages checked but oh-so-stylish results presentation. Very informative.
<li><ahref="https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-find-broken-links-on-your-website-using-wget-on-debian-7">Linkchecking with wget</a> - command line methods on Linux
