<Chapter Label="Introduction"><Heading>Introduction</Heading>

<Section Label="Aims"><Heading>General aims</Heading>

The overall aim of <Package>QPA</Package> is to provide computational
tools in basic research in mathematics (algebra). It seeks to furnish
users within and outside the area of representation theory of finite
dimensional algebras with a computational software package that will
help in exploring a problem and testing conjectures. As with all
software development, new ideas and question will arise. The ability
to study and compute examples will help in proving or disproving
well-established questions/conjectures.  Furthermore, it will enable
us to consider new examples which were not accessible by hand or other
means before. In this way, we hope that <Package>QPA</Package> will
aid in the development, not only of the area of representation theory
of finite dimensional algebras, but also of a broad variety of other
areas of mathematics, where such structures occur. In addition we
aspire to create a research environment for international cooperation
on computational representation theory of finite dimensional algebras.
</Section> 

<Section Label="Installation"><Heading>Installation and system requirements</Heading>

Since the release of GAP version 4.7.8, the package
<Package>QPA</Package> is distributed with GAP, so if you download
this version or any later version of GAP, the package
<Package>QPA</Package> will be installed at the same time as GAP is
installed.  Follow the instructions for installing GAP on the web page

<URL>http://www.gap-system.org/Download/index.html</URL>

After having successfully started GAP, give the command
<Example>
gap> LoadPackage("qpa");
</Example>
which loads QPA and you can start using QPA.<P/>

One can also clone the QPA git repository from
<List>
<Item><URL>https://github.com/gap-packages/qpa</URL></Item>
</List> 
to follow the QPA development. Follow the instructions on
<List>
<Item><URL>http://www.math.ntnu.no/~oyvinso/QPA/</URL></Item>
</List>
to install QPA by cloning the the git repository. 

</Section>
</Chapter>
