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## Appendic B

## Transmitter and Publish Reference

In this appendix you'll find a quick reference to the menus and panels in the Castanet Transmitter and Castanet Publish, as well as the options for the command-line versions of these programs.

### Castanet Transmitter

The transmitter itself doesn't have any menus, but it does have screens for setting up the configuration.

#### Basic Configuration

Transmitter Channels Directory: The directory on the transmitter's system where channel files and logging information is stored.

Transmitter Host and Port: The name of the host and the port on which the transmitter runs. By default, the port number is `80`. Make sure that there isn't a Web server already running on that port, and if there is, use another port. (`5282` is a common substitute.)

Transmitter Access: The hosts that will be allowed to publish channels on this host and the password they must use to do so. If no hosts are specified, any host can publish channels.

Publish Notifications: The e-mail address of the announcement service at Marimba for new channels. (Leave blank to avoid announcing channels.) The value of SMTP host is the default mail server.

After the basic configuration is complete, you have the following options:

Advanced: View the advanced configuration properties.

Back: Return to the basic configuration.

Launch: Start the transmitter.

Start/Stop: Start or stop the transmitter.

Help: View the online help for the transmitter (requires a Web browser).

Exit: Exit the transmitter.

Advanced Configuration

Transmitter Concurrency: Set the total number of processes and the number of initial threads per process. The total number of concurrent connections equals the number of processes times the number of threads; increase these numbers to allow more concurrent connections. Use the value of Max threads to limit the number of concurrent connections.

Transmitter Cache: A memory cache for storing channels. The optimum size of this cache should be the total size of all the channels you publish on the transmitter.

Command-Line Transmitter (Solaris Only)

After you've configured the transmitter at least once, you can start it from the command line using the transmitter command and the name of the transmitter's channel directory:

`% transmitter /usr/local/channels`

### Castanet Publish

The Castanet Publish tool is used to publish channels to a transmitter. This section describes the various properties and buttons available in the Castanet Publish tool, and the options for the command-line version of Publish.

Channels Under Development Screen

The main Castanet Publish screen shows a list of local channels being developed and ready for publishing.

Proxy: Set the proxy information for accessing the transmitter.

Add: Add a local channel directory to the list.

Remove: Remove a local channel directory from the list.

Edit: Edit the properties for that channel. (See "Properties," below.)

Quit: Quit the publish tool.

Help: Display the online help for channel configuration (requires a Web browser).

Properties

The properties screens allow you to set or change the properties for the channel and to publish it.

Publish: Publish the channel to the transmitter listed in the transmitter properties.

Delete: Delete the channel from the transmitter listed in the transmitter properties. This command does not delete the channel from the local disk.

Preview: When selected, choosing Publish saves all properties but does not actually move any files to the transmitter.

Apply: Save the values for each properties screen.

Reset: Revert to the save properties for each screen.

Done: Return to the Channels under Development screen.

Help: View the online help (requires a Web browser).

Transmitter

Properties for the transmitter and for which files to publish.

Host: The host name of the transmitter. Use localhost when the transmitter is running on the same system as the Publish.

Port: The port number of the transmitter.

Password: The transmitter password, if any.

Ignore: Filenames to ignore when publishing channels (for example, source, or backup files).

Password: The channel password, if any.

General

Properties for the overall makeup of the channel and how it will be handled in the tuner.

Name: The name of the channel as it will appear in the tuner.

Type: The type of channel (application, applet, HTML, or presentation.

Classpath: The directories in addition to the channel directory in which to look for class files.

Main class: The first class to start when the channel is launched.

Code: The main applet class for applet channels.

Code base: The value of the `CODEBASE` attribute from the `<APPLET>` tag, for applet channels.

GUI file: The name of the presentation associated with this channel.

Width: The width of the applet channel window.

Height: The height of the applet channel window.

Index page: The home page of an HTML channel.

Update

Properties for how the channel will manage updates. For inactive channels.

Update Frequency: How often to update a non-running channel.

Data Available action: How the channel will handle an update: ignore, start, or notify. (The latter requires special code in the channel.)

For active channels:

Update Frequency: How often to update a running channel.

Data Available Action: How the channel will handle an update: ignore, restart, or install. (The latter requires special code in the channel.)

Icons

Properties for custom channel icons.

Icon (GIF): A 64-pixel square icon in GIF format for the channel.

Icon (BMP) A 64-pixel square icon in GIF format for the channel.

Thumbnail Inactive: A 16-pixel square icon for how an inactive channel looks in the tuner.

Thumbnail Active: A 16-pixel square icon for how an active channel appears in the tuner.

Contacts

Contact information for the channel.

Author: Name and e-mail address of the channel's author.

Administrator: Name and e-mail address of the channel's administrator (might be the same person as the author).

Description

Copyright and summary information for the channel.

Copyright: Copyright information for the channel (such as Copyright (c) 1996 Laura Lemay).

Description: A summary paragraph of what the channel is for.

Parameters

Parameters or options for how the channel should behave. Especially useful for applet channels.

Parameters are indicated by name value pairs, one per line, for example:

`name=Laura`

`age=29`

The `publish` Command

You can also publish channels using the command-line version of the publish tool, which does not pop up a GUI. Each channel you publish should already have its properties set (should have a `properties.txt` file in its channel directory).

In Windows, you must use the `publish.exe` tool from the command directory, not the `publish.exe` tool from the top level of the tuner installation directory.

The command-line publish works like this, where the brackets (`[]`) are optional commands:

`publish [-host` hostname`[:`portnum`] [-ignore` wildcards`] [-quiet] -[n]` directory

The options are

-host: Publish to the named transmitter hostname. Use the port in portnum.

-ignore: A list of wildcards, surrounded by single quotes, of files to ignore while publishing–for example `'*.java'`. The default is to ignore core, `*~,*.java,*.bak'`.

-quiet: Operate without output. (Normally, the `publish` command prints what its doing.)

-n: List the operations to perform, but don't do any of them.

directory: The full or relative path name to the channel directory.

You can also use publish to delete a channel from a transmitter, like this:

`publish -delete [-host` hostname`[:`portnum`]` directoryOrChannel

-delete: delete the channel.

directoryOrChannel: Either the full or relative path name of the channel directory, or the name of the channel. If you use the name of the channel, you must also include the `-host` option. Note that this command deletes only the channel from the transmitter; it does not effect the local copy of that channel.