[kepler-users] kepler in web mode

[Christopher Brooks]

One of my tasks is to work on deploying Ptolemy as Web Start (JNLP).

The advantage of Web Start over a Web Application is that you don't
need an internet connection to use JNLP.  That said, I really like
the various Kepler Web efforts that I've seen and I really believe
that we need both Hydrant/Science Pipes/Christopher Tuot's work
and Web Start (JNLP).

Edward is interested in having examples on the web so that they
may be used as part of the instructional process.
Also, there is some interest in the Ptolemy 2009 Google Summer of Code
in educational materials, see
http://groups.google.com/group/ptolemy-gsoc-2009/browse_thread/thread/a743a70130fb76a3?hl=en

It turns out that deploying JNLP is not that hard once you've done
it once.
- Fixing up package dependencies so that the right code is in the jar 
files can be tricky.
- Handling resources can be tricky.  Images etc. must be in jar
files (or available via the web (maybe)).  Code must be written to
handle jar URLs.  jar files that refer to resources in other jars
can have problems.  This issue also comes up in installers that
are deployed with just jar files, though this can be worked around
by having the install access resources as files.
- Signing jars is not that hard.
- We build a JNLP Ptolemy installer every night that often works.
- I find that creating a JNLP download is much faster than creating
a Windows installer because I can quickly fix issues by updating
a jar file and then downloading the JNLP file.  This is much faster
than fixing the problem, uninstalling the app, building the installer,
reinstalling the app.

It could be that Hydrant/Science Pipes/Christopher Tuot's work
or another Web App is much better than JNLP.
However, the last issue: faster creation of installers, is very
important to me.

This week, I'm looking at using Maven to create JNLP files.

_Christopher

Matt Jones wrote:
> Years ago we (Ilkay) worked on a web start version of kepler that we
> tried for a while.  It was fairly difficult to set up and maintain,
> especially because of a variety of jar signing issues, and we didn't
> see many benefits of that approach over a plain installer.  So we
> never formally pursued it, and I suspect that you might have a
> difficult time trying to get it to work now.  At this point getting it
> set up would be a completely new initiative, as any jnlp files and
> other artifacts would be so out of date that they wouldn't be useful.
> 
> Web start isn't really much of a web mode anyways, in that all you're
> really doing is launching an app via a web process.  Have you
> considered contributing to one of the web-based Kepler UI efforts,
> such as Hydrant or SciencePipes that have been discussed on this list?
> We have a Web User Interface interest group that is discussing just
> these sorts of issues:
> https://kepler-project.org/developers/interest-groups/webui
> 
> Matt
> 
> On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 1:20 AM, tkd <thinkalldifferently at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> I'm interested on using Kepler in a web mode. Apparently, this is possible
>> with java web start, that's right ? In the positive case, is there some
>> documentation about this topic please ?
>>
>> Thanks in advance
>>
>> tkd
>> _______________________________________________
>> Kepler-users mailing list
>> Kepler-users at kepler-project.org
>> http://mercury.nceas.ucsb.edu/kepler/mailman/listinfo/kepler-users
>>
> 
> 
> 

-- 
Christopher Brooks (cxh at eecs berkeley edu) University of California
CHESS Executive Director                      US Mail: 337 Cory Hall
Programmer/Analyst CHESS/Ptolemy/Trust        Berkeley, CA 94720-1774
ph: 510.643.9841 fax:510.642.2718	      (Office: 545Q Cory)
home: (F-Tu) 707.665.0131 (W-F) 510.655.5480