To facilitate development of VR Juggler applications, an environment is created after compiling that simulates a fully installed version of the library and its components. This is done entirely within the build environment and is rooted in a directory called instlinks (a subdirectory of the top-level build directory).

When the build process completes, a message is printed telling the developer the value to which s/he should set the environment variable $VJ_BASE_DIR. By doing this simple step, the developer is given a pseudo-installation where Juggler applications (that are part of the source tree) can be compiled and executed. These applications are linked statically on IRIX, but on all other UNIX-based platforms, they are linked dynamically. In those cases, $LD_LIBRARY_PATH should be set to the value $VJ_BASE_DIR/lib which is a normal step in the setup process for using an actual installation.

As of this writing, this environment is not available on a Win32 platform. This is because the creation of it relies heavily on symbolic links. Because of this, Juggler must be fully installed for application development. Suggestions for enabling an equivalent development environment for Win32 are welcomed. It is possible, after installing Juggler, to continue working within the build environment. Set $VJ_BASE_DIR to the installation directory and continue working as on any other platform. All library binaries and headers will be referenced from the installed version, but source code (for applications as an example) comes from the Juggler source tree.