Installation Guide

webinar applet

 

1. Overview

The webinar applet is a Java applet that runs in any browser that supports the Java(tm) plugin. The software has been tested with the plugin version 1.6.x however should also work with 1.7 version as well.

2. Distribution

The software is distributed as a zip file, webinar.zip. The zip contains the required java software archives (jars) and image resources required for proper applet operation. Unzip the distribution zip file at the ${DOCROOT} of your website. When unzipped the distribution creates the directory /applets/bin/webinar which should contain

Java jar files:

  • jl1.0.jar
  • mp3spi1.9.4.jar
  • srsswing.jar
  • tritonus_share.jar
  • webinar.jar

Image files:

  • blackRightArrow20x20.gif
  • pause_disabled.gif
  • pause_enabled.gif
  • pause_selected.gif
  • play_disabled.gif
  • play_enabled.gif
  • play_selected.gif
  • stop_disabled.gif
  • stop_enabled.gif
  • stop_selected.gif

 

3. Applet Details

The information required for the use of the applet within an HTML page are provided in this section.

 
applet class:  Use the class com.srs.webinar.PresentationApplet. The class can be found in the webinar.jar jar which can be referenced by the jvm through the use of the archive attribute of the applet tag. It is important to note that the applet makes use of java resources from other jars and thus all the jars provided in the distribution need to be available in the jvm classpath in order for the applet to function properly. See the HTML Markup section for an example of proper classpath setup.

parameters:  The webinar applet does not have any custom parameters that it uses. The standard applet tag attributes are used to configuration the layout of the presention.

widthtotal width of the visible applet surface. When determining applet width note that the leftmost part of the presentation applet is utilized for an index of the presentation topics. So the total applet width consists of { presentaiton index frame width } + { presentation frame width }
heighttotal height of the visible applet surface. When determining applet height note that the leftmost part of the presentation applet is utilized for presentation controls, an index of the presentation, and a presentation banner. Additionally realize that presentation images are resized to fit within the available width of the presenation drawling surface. So if a small image width is chosen, its hight can be effected with the width is scaled. So the size of the presentation images also has effects to the overall height needed for the applet.

4. HTML Markup

To serve up the webinar applet within your webpages use the HTML applet tag using the java class and applet tag attributes previously discuessed. The following example HTML snippit illustrates the recommended markup for displaying the applet.

5. Applet Binary directory

For the purpose of reusability we recommend that the applet distribution be located at a common location within the web site document root. The recommended location for the webinar applet is ${DOC_ROOT}/applets/bin/webinar. See section 2 for a listing of files that should reside in this directory.

5. Web page directory

The webinar applet is designed to serve one web presentation per web site directory. Within each directory containing a webinar there are three distinct application resources.

  1. A web page with the applet tag
  2. Webinar image and sound files (webinar resources)
  3. A webinar presentation definition file
Web pages that utilize the webinar applet can contain any HTML mark up you desire as well as the applet HTML tag for the webinar as previously detailed.

 
The webinar resource files consist of image files and sound files that are utilized for the web presentation. The webinar resources must be located within the same directory as the HTML file serving the webinar. Image files can be any image file nativly supported by the Java JVM which generally includes PNG, GIF, JPG, BMP, plus various other formats. Sound support includes any sound format supported nativly by the Java JVM as well as MP3. We have specifically packaged the webinar applet with MP3 support as that is now the currently predomonant sound stoarge format as of this writing.

 
The presentation definition file is a flat text file that the webinar applet uses to define the various topics and their related resources being presented within the Webinar. The definition file must be named Presentation.pdef. As with the webinar presentation resources, the webinar applet looks for the presentation definition within the same directory as the html file from which the applet was served.

7. Presentation Definition File

The configuration for each webinar is a text based configuration file which is used by the applet to load and present the various slides that make up the webinar. The file format is a semicolin delimited file which contains tupples of configuraiton information.

 tupple 1   ;   tupple 2   ;   tupple 3 newline character (\n)

 

The first tupple in each line is a unique slide name that is utilized to identify each slide. Since there are multiple pieces of information necessary for each slide, configuration for a single slide spans multiple lines of the presentation definition file. The first tupple of each line is thus utilized to group multiple lines of the presentation definition file together.


The second tupple of data identifies the configuration data that is being provided by this line. As an example, the VO configuration signals that the data being provided identifys the Voice Over sound file for the slide.

Lastly the third tupple provides the data for the configuration. Continuing with the VO example, the data for this configuration would be the name of the sound file to use for this slide. Remember that the file must reside in the same directory as the applet's html file, so this is relative data file name and not a full path to a file.

 
As an example a full line of configuraiton looks like this:

Intro;VO;Intro.mp3

 
Since Presention definition is an entire subject in and of itself additional specifics of building a presentation are deferred for the purposes of the installation guide. For additional matrials on presentation defintion see

  • the Presenation Definition Guide.
  • the Demo webinar, which is available for download in the download area

7. Licensing

The webinar applet is being distributed as OpenSource software available under the terms and agreement of the GNU Public License. This software may be used free of charge and may be redistributed as desired within the constraints of the GNU license.

8. Distribution

The applet software is available at this sight in both binary and source form.

At the present time Solid Rock Solutions has not gotten that complicated in its use of version control and does not yet have a public version control system available such as CVS. As such the binary and source is being distributed in jar file format.