Cross-platform delivery

[MergeThis]

This is our product environment:

CLIENT (all required)

Windows XP SP2
.NET Framework 1.1
IE 6.0
Adobe Reader 7

SERVER (one required)

Windows Enterprise Server 2003
Sun Solaris 9 / Solaris 10
HP-UX 11i
Linux Redhat Enterprise Server 4.0
AIX 5.2

DATABASE (one required)

MS-SQL
Oracle
Sybase

Our online, browser-based help (created in RoboHelp), although provided on a CD with the product, is designed to run on the same middle-tier Apache Tomcat server as all the back-office functionality does.

I've been using the JavaScript method, in part because of the cross-platform capability, as well as the realization that the other methods might require heavy involvement from our development folks (a daunting task at times). Since I'm indexing against our source files and sending the Zoom files to the output folder, I'm also running a batch program that does some lowercasing and folder renaming against the zoom_index.js file.

So now that we have a much-improved search function, naturally the Engineering director wants more! Specifically, he's currently enamored with the Holy Grail of what ZOOM calls "Statistic Reports." I've also been forced to admit that the search would be more advanced when using the other methods (which has only added to the pressure).

Could ASP, CGI, or PHP be used in this environment? If so, how extensive would the setup and maintenance be? Would other servers have to be added to what we deliver to the customer?


Thanks for any advice you can offer. This is a great product, and your responses to the user forum are top-notch!
Leon

[Ray]

In case you are not completely familiar with PHP, ASP or CGI, this FAQ contains some useful background information:
Q. What is PHP, ASP, CGI or JavaScript? How do I determine which one I should use?

From what I can gather in your description, your product is delivered as an installed system. That is, you do not need to run the search function directly off the CD? In that case, I presume that the search function will only need to run off the server (which is to be one of the platforms you listed above).

I am also presuming that you are only providing the pre-indexed search files for your help system. Your solution will need not allow users to re-index any files.

As you mentioned that you will already have Apache running on the server, this should point the way to either the PHP or CGI option. PHP support comes with most default Apache installations, and this is a good solution with minimum technical requirements. Check if your current Apache install contains PHP support. If not, you should consider including it. With this in place, you should not need any additional server, and should be able to use your existing one.

Note that a PHP script will run on any Apache server with PHP (4.0 or higher) support regardless of the OS of the server.

While the CGI will offer maximum performance (for indexing and searching well over 65,000 pages, and upwards to around a million pages), it will require more setting up (file permissions are important), and a different CGI binary is required for each OS. At current, we only provide binaries for Linux, BSD, Win32 and Solaris.

Hope that helps!

[MergeThis]

Yes, thanks, Ray, that's helpful.

My next question, then, is this: would we be able to get Statistic Reports from our customers, and how exactly, since we're not hosting the help on our site? Do we simply retrieve from each customer site (pull or push) all of their log files that the PHP-based engine will generate, then "read" them with the Zoom Statistics tool? Also, could all those log files be easily combined into one for a "global" look at results?

Also, I suspect that since some customers might be copying the help folder onto their client machines, I think I might have to provide the alternative JavaScript search files along with instructions on replacing the PHP search files for any non-server use. That's doable, right?

Leon

[Ray]

Logging will only save the log files on the servers where the PHP search script is running (or a locally networked shared drive to the server). If you are hosting these servers, then you can retrieve them. Otherwise, it really depends on how you plan to do this, or what you offer your customers ... if you offer to do maintenance on these servers, then you can retrieve the files during maintenance. Alternatively, you could create a script or schedule a FTP job on these servers so that they will upload the log files to YOUR own server (presuming these servers have access to the Internet/your server). Or perhaps you could even script them to just e-mail them to you.

Regarding combining log files from different Zoom search functions... the log files are simply CSV (comma separated value) text files, so they can be imported in something like Excel and accumulated together to do further analysis. However, we have not tested nor designed the built-in Statistics Reports tool to handle the accumulated results of multiple log files.

And yes, you can offer both the Javascript and PHP searches, and use one as fallback if the other doesn't work.

[MergeThis]

Thanks again, Ray.

Much to talk about here, now (mostly, how much heavy lifting the development folks will take on).