Digital Workshop

I've made a few web pubs (.ilm + .htm), and I need to check if the pubs are on my server or have been downloaded and are being used offline.
I've been playing with the Post Web Data function to read a database or other file, but that seems to need a full URL path. I can't get it to work with relative paths.
Anyone got a method of checking if an Opus web pub is running on a server?

Paul

Hi Paul,

Did you get anywhere with this issue. I can see how it would be useful to know this information.

Mack

Hi Mack,
no luck yet -- not as easy as I thought it was going to be.

Paul

Can you not get the publication to post web data to you, saying it's being used, perhaps each time it starts? so rather than checking for it, get the publication to tell you??

Hi Paul,

An interesting challenge. I assume by 'offline' you mean that the Plexus file will run with a "file://" rather than a "http://" URL?

Is there a specific reason for this, as there might be a better solution than - IE if you need to make sure that the most current version is running (the one on your server) then this is a lot easier.

The best idea I can come up with at present is rather inelegant but basically, you'd add a small video clip to the publication and check the length of this clip - but publish with embedded off - the video would need to be in the same directory as the ilm file else the returned length will be wrong.

Mack

At the moment this is an experiment to see if I can stop anyone from copying the .htm and .ilm files from a web pub and using them somewhere else.
I can easily detect if the pub is offline or not using a full URL and the InternetPostData function. I want the pub to stop working if someone downloads it and tries to run it locally. At the moment if they are online it still works because it can access my server using the full URL path Opus requires.
Because the web pub works inside a browser it is effectively sandboxed and has limited access to its local environment, and returns only local information using Opus's built in system variables.

So in the end the server needs to work out if the pub is on the server or somewhere else and stop feeding it the information required to run.
The issue is similar -- sort of -- to one of hotlink prevention, something I know nothing about. So I will probably have a look at how that works.

I could have gone down the wrong track with this; so if there's a simple solution out there I would be grateful to see it.

Paul

Paul

I assume you're using some Linux system for your server? Perhaps you can find some program similar to the following, which is Win/PC only.


ISO + Unbuntu: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/ubuntu/h ... ntu-linux/

Then use Opus setting that requires CDROM to be present? I realize that may be wishful thinking, but keep us posted if it leads to a solution.

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Could take me a while -- HDD failed and I've lost the last couple of days work.
Times like this you appreciate backups.

Paul