The Publisher tool publishes channels to a transmitter on a server. Once published, they become channels to which a client can subscribe. In its simplest form, publishing is the IntelliPortal method for uploading channels to a server. It is a special way of copying channel files to the transmitter that communicates with a client application. To make a channel available to tuners, you move the source code and data files to the server in one directory, using the Publisher. To update a channel with new code or data, you simply re-publish the channel with updated files; only the new or modified files are copied to the server.
You also use the Publisher to delete previously published channels as explained below in Publish Properties. After an update, a deleted channel is not available to end users. |
Channel developers must use a directory structure that places all objects for a channel in one folder. It contains all the runtime objects, source code, bitmaps, sound files, etc. that are necessary to run the channel. The folder is then published as a directory or as a directory tree that resides on the server. For example, all images, sound files, and source code might reside in the folder c:\intelliportal\channels\mychannel. Or you could publish the files as a tree structure with multiple subdirectories.
c:\intelliportal\channels\mychannel\images c:\intelliportal\channels\mychannel\wav c:\intelliportal\channels\mychannel\sourcecode
In both cases, the directory c:\intelliportal\channels\mychannel is the root publish directory for the channel and all files and subdirectories in the tree are uploaded during publishing. The Publisher itself creates additional files in this root directory that are required by the channel. Some of these files contain properties like channel type, channel name, and runtime characteristics; others like server name, transmitter port, etc. define the server environment.
The Publisher is also used to publish certain .jar files, including those needed by the MECA Storage Facility. See the Classpath field on the General tab for more information. |
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The Publisher is used to publish channels to a transmitter. The main window (the Channels tab) for publishing channels is shown below and the tabbed items are explained on the following pages. You can use the Publisher to edit channel properties, to publish channels to a transmitter, or to delete channels from a transmitter. You can start the Publisher from Solaris or from Windows. From Solaris, change to the directory where the tools are installed and type publish.sh. From Windows, navigate to the Publisher from the Start menu.
The main window shows all channels that are currently visible to the Publisher. This does not mean that the channel has actually been published. It just means the channel has been defined with the Publisher and is available for publishing.
When initially installing IntelliPortal, the Publisher window is automatically populated with the required system channels (and optional sample channels) that must be published as part of the installation. The System channels and the Startup sample channel are required. The remaining Sample channels are optional. The General properties for these channels are already defined and should not be changed. All you have to do is select and Publish them as explained in Publishing Multiple Channels.
Before publishing the System and Sample channels, they must be installed in a writable directory on disk; you cannot publish these channels from the installation CD-ROM. |
After the initial installation, you can publish or remove individual channels as explained below.
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To publish a channel |
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To remove a channel |
Multi-publishing lets you select and publish (or remove) multiple channels at once. It greatly simplifies the task of publishing (or removing) more than one channel. You can only multi-publish channels that have been added to the Channels window and whose General properties have been set. During multi-publishing, the General tab is disabled.
To publish multiple channels, use the procedures outlined above to add the channels and set General properties. When done, use Ctrlt+Click to select the multiple channels that you want to publish or remove. The last channel selected (as noted in the window title) is the anchor channel whose Publish properties are used for all the channels. These properties (e.g. Host Name, Port, etc.) override any properties that were previously assigned to a channel. You can also Preview or Delete multiple channels at once from the Publish tab.
The General tab lets you set a variety of properties that describe the channel's properties and specify how it will be published. All fields are explained in the following table (and in the tool tips). Note that a different pane is displayed depending on whether you are publishing an Application (Java) channel or an HTML channel. Fill in the appropriate fields and enter an optional description as explained in Channel Description. When done click Apply Changes and go to the Publish tab.
As a general rule, channel names must be unique across multiple transmitters. Channels are overwritten if a client points to different transmitters on which the same channel name is published. |
| General Property | Value | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| Channel Name | name* | The channel name other than the Visible Name. For flexibility, this name need not match Visible Name that is shown in the Channel Menu. | |
| Visible Name | A string that represents the channel in the channel menu and in the Publisher. If omitted, the channel is not shown on the channel menu. If you want to publish two instances of the same channel with different names, publish the same channel with different Visible Names. | ||
| Channel Type | Application| HTML | An Application channel is a Java channel. Choose one. | |
| Location | Text string (e.g. logopanel) assigned to a specific panel in the layout. See Client Panels for more details. | mainbody | |
| Type | content| system| status | Panel type. See Client Panels for more details. | content |
| Category | category* | The category under which the channel is grouped in both the Publisher and in the channel menu. All channels should be assigned to a category. | |
| Autorun | True|False | If true, the channel is started automatically if subscribed to. | False |
| Mandatory | True|False | If true, the channel is always subscribed to. The user cannot unsubscribe from the channel. | False |
| Selectable | True|False | If true, the channel's Visible Name appears in channel menu. If a channel is selectable, a visible name and a channel name are required. | |
| Main Class | main* | Java channels. Specifies name of class that runs when channel is launched. Do not use .class extension. Generally, this is the class with the channel's start() method. | |
| Classpath | Java channels. A colon-separated list of directories and ZIP files to be searched for classes. Also used to publish JAR files with a channel. Enter the JAR filename (relative to the root directory.) | ||
| Codebase | Java channels. This allows you to alter the default CLASSPATH of the application. The specified pathname is relative to the channel's base directory. | ||
| Index Page | HTML channels. The initial HTML page to load (e.g. index.html). | ||
| Index Source | loadmode|** channel| web | HTML channels. Indicates the source (local or remote) of an HTML index page. channel loads the page from a local channel e.g. index.html; web loads the page from a remote website e.g. http://index.html. | |
| Use Controls | True|False | HTML channels. If true, Forward and Backward navigation buttons are displayed. | |
| Adapter Support | True|False | If true, the channel can access data through an external adapter. If false, it is a standalone channel without access to external data sources. | False |
| update.inactive | never| hourly| daily| weekly | How often the channel checks for updates when not running. | weekly |
| update.active | never| frequently| hourly| daily| weekly | How often the channel checks for updates when running. never means the channel is only updated when explicitly directed, either by the user or by another channel. | never |
| update.action | ignore| restart| install | What action to take if an update becomes available while the channel is running. | restart |
| install.inactive | ignore| start| notify | What action to take if an update becomes available while the channel is not running. | ignore |
The Channel Description button at the bottom of the General properties window is used to provide a thumbnail description for end users who may want to subscribe to a channel. This description is displayed in the client when you select "Personalize Menu" and click on an available channel. The client shell renders HTML 3.2 tags and you can use this window as an editor to preview what the description will look like in IntelliPortal. When done click Ok and then Apply Changes.
Use the Publish tab to actually publish channels to the specified transmitter (the Host Name). Just fill in the appropriate fields and click Publish. A "succeeded!" message in the status window indicates that the channel has been successfully published. Use the Preview button to see what files have changed since the channel was last published. Use the Delete button to delete previously published channels. After an update, a deleted channel is no longer available to end users.
The "client" or "tuner" update channel (e.g. IntelliPortalClient) is a required system channel that represents a client image of the tuner. This channel is published with the other system (and sample) channels during IntelliPortal installation. The client channel does not play in the tuner; it is simply the current image of the client that is available on the server for distribution. When you perform a client update, you are simply updating the local image of the client with the latest files and updatable tuner components. The updater is designed to support upgrades of the client shell; it also provides a way to add new services and to add jars to the system classpath.
When you update the client, you only update those files for which there is a newer version available on the server. This new image is sent to end users who elect to UPDATE! To create a new client update, you need to copy the new files to the channel and then re-publish. When re-publishing, be sure that client.channel and defaulttrans0 tags in the properties.txt file are set correctly.
| client.channel | Must match the channel name that represents the client image. |
| defaulttrans0 | Must match the transmitter that the channel is published to. |
This automatically makes the update available to end users at the update interval specified in the properties file. If the update is not successful, a message is displayed in the Update window below and the last error is written to Update.err in the lib directory.
The are several tags in the configuration files that control the update process. After a successful update, these tags are reset to the defaults shown in the table below. When you exit IntelliPortal for the first time after running the client, update.available is set to true causing the updater to prompt for an update when you re-connect; update.last indicates the date and time of the last successful update; and update.frequency indicates the frequency of future updates.
As noted, an update can consist of some or all of the updatable components in the tuner and client code. During an update, end users are prompted for a network setting (see below). If you have not already set up a network connection, instructions for choosing a dialup or LAN connection are available in the IntelliPortal Help system.
