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Connecting web applications to standalone help [message #470860]

Tue, 13 November 2007 06:23

Peter Desjardins

Messages: 21
Registered: July 2009

Junior Member

I need to serve online help for a web application running in a Software
As A Service (SAAS) environment. There are several instances of the web
application running on the JBoss application server. I've got my help
content running in Eclipse and it looks great. I have a few questions
about connecting the web applications to the help system.

1. If I start an instance of standalone help, can more than one web
application instance invoke displayHelp? Will each invocation of
displayHelp start a new help server instance?

2. If I run an instance of standalone help on one server and I have a
web application running on another server, is it possible for the web
application to call the help classes on the standalone help server? Can
the web application and the help system be running on different servers?

3. I must ensure that unknown users on the Internet cannot access the
online help. If I run an instance of standalone help and have the web
applications invoke it via Java, do I need to make the help system
directly available to the internet? It looks to me that I don't but I
want to confirm.

Thanks for your help.

Peter Desjardins

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Re: Connecting web applications to standalone help [message #470865 is a reply to message #470860]

Tue, 13 November 2007 21:58

Chris Goldthorpe

Messages: 815
Registered: July 2009

Senior Member

I'm pretty sure that each instance of standalone help would create a new
instance of the help server and therefore start help on another port.
You may want to use an infocenter rather than standalone help. This is
basically a help server which starts on a port number which you specify
and is intended for accessing help from multiple remote computers.

As for security I don't have a quick answer there, you probably want to
use another Web server as a gateway to the help system to restrict the
access. Maybe someone else reading this newsgroup has some hints on how
to set up security.

Peter Desjardins wrote:
> I need to serve online help for a web application running in a Software
> As A Service (SAAS) environment. There are several instances of the web
> application running on the JBoss application server. I've got my help
> content running in Eclipse and it looks great. I have a few questions
> about connecting the web applications to the help system.
>
> 1. If I start an instance of standalone help, can more than one web
> application instance invoke displayHelp? Will each invocation of
> displayHelp start a new help server instance?
>
> 2. If I run an instance of standalone help on one server and I have a
> web application running on another server, is it possible for the web
> application to call the help classes on the standalone help server? Can
> the web application and the help system be running on different servers?
>
> 3. I must ensure that unknown users on the Internet cannot access the
> online help. If I run an instance of standalone help and have the web
> applications invoke it via Java, do I need to make the help system
> directly available to the internet? It looks to me that I don't but I
> want to confirm.
>
> Thanks for your help.
>
> Peter Desjardins

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Re: Connecting web applications to standalone help [message #470867 is a reply to message #470865]

Tue, 13 November 2007 22:18

Peter Desjardins

Messages: 21
Registered: July 2009

Junior Member

Chris Goldthorpe wrote:

> I'm pretty sure that each instance of standalone help would create a new
> instance of the help server and therefore start help on another port.
> You may want to use an infocenter rather than standalone help. This is
> basically a help server which starts on a port number which you specify
> and is intended for accessing help from multiple remote computers.

Do you know whether an application running on one server can access
standalone help that's installed on another server?

Thanks again,

Peter Desjardins

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