Installation#

Installing as an executable file#

Echofilter is distributed as an executable binary file for Windows. All dependencies are packaged as part of the distribution.

  1. Download the zip file containing the echofilter executable as follows:

    1. Go to the releases tab of the echofilter repository.

    2. Select the release to download. It is recommended to use the latest version, with the highest release number.

    3. Click on the file named echofilter-executable-M.N.P.zip, where M.N.P is replaced with the version number, to download it. For example: echofilter-executable-1.2.0.zip

      Alternatively, the zipped executables can be downloaded from a mirror on GDrive.

  2. Unzip the zip file, and put the directory contained within it wherever you like on your Windows machine. It is recommended to put it as an “echofilter” directory within your Programs folder, or similar. (You may need the WinZip or 7z application to unzip the .zip file.)

  3. In File Explorer,

    1. navigate to the echofilter directory you unzipped. This directory contains a file named echofilter.exe.

    2. left click on the echofilter directory containing the echofilter.exe file

    3. Shift+Right click on the echofilter directory

    4. select “Copy as path”

    5. paste the path into a text editor of your choice (e.g. Notepad)

  4. Find and open the Command Prompt application (your Windows machine comes with this pre-installed). That application is also called cmd.exe. It will open a window containing a terminal within which there is a command prompt where you can type to enter commands.

  5. Within the Command Prompt window (the terminal window):

    1. type: "cd " (without quote marks, with a trailing space) and then right click and select paste in order to paste the full path to the echofilter directory, which you copied to the clipboard in step 3d.

    2. press enter to run this command, which will change the current working directory of the terminal to the echofilter directory.

    3. type: echofilter --version

    4. press enter to run this command

    5. you will see the version number of echofilter printed in the terminal window

    6. type: echofilter --help

    7. press enter to run this command

    8. you will see the help for echofilter printed in the terminal window

  6. (Optional) So that you can just run echofilter without having to change directory (using the cd command) to the directory containing echofilter.exe, or use the full path to echofilter.exe, every time you want to use it, it is useful to add echofilter to the PATH environment variable. This step is entirely optional and for your convenience only. The PATH environment variable tells the terminal where it should look for executable commands.

    1. Instructions for how to do this depend on your version of Windows and can be found here: https://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000549.htm.

    2. An environment variable named PATH (case-insensitive) should already exist.

    3. If this is a string, you need to edit the string and prepend the path from 3e, plus a semicolon. For example, change the current value of C:\Program Files;C:\Winnt;C:\Winnt\System32 into C:\Program Files\echofilter;C:\Program Files;C:\Winnt;C:\Winnt\System32

    4. If this is a list of strings (without semicolons), add your path from 3e (e.g. C:\Program Files\echofilter) to the list

  7. You can now run echofilter on some files, by using the echofilter command in the terminal. Example commands are shown below.