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Defining, editing, and deleting applications


Before a user can access an application from the Applications tab, an administrator must define the application using the Application page of the Administration tab. Defining an application does not create the application, it creates a reference to an existing application and defines its properties. For more information, see the Developers Guide in the Information Center.

Note: If you are using WebSphere as the application server or an external web server (iPlanet, Apache, or IIS), there are additional steps you must perform after creating an application. If you are using WebSphere, see "Defining an application when running with WebSphere" in the Administrator's Guide. For external web servers, see "Steps to Register an Application with an External Web Server" in the Administrator's Guide.

To define an application definition:

  1. Click the Create button.
  2. In the Name field, enter a unique context name (required). Allowable characters are A-Z, a-z, 0-9, underscore, or special characters (for example, accented characters) when running in a language other than English. No spaces are allowed. The display of the name is case-sensitive but the actual username that is authenticated is case-insensitive. The names Public, Private, and Properties are reserved and cannot be used for an object name.
Note: You can rename an application by modifying the Application Name text box. When you rename an application, the directory name for the application in the IBM Alphablox Repository and any bookmarks that reference the application are renamed. For you application server, you must also rename the applications using the server's administrative console.
  1. In the Description text box, you can enter an optional description. The description appears on the console when using the show command.
  2. In the Home URL text box, enter the relative URL where the IBM Alphablox application resides. Click the Test Home URL button to ensure that the URL is properly defined and that the application is running.
  3. In the Image URL text box, enter the URL where the identifying image for the IBM Alphablox application resides (optional). Click the Test Image URL button to display the image in a browser window. This ensures the image is properly identified and will appear as you want.
  4. Specify if the application has a specific default saved state and whether or not the user can restore it:
  5. The Write Privileges Security Role field can be used to limit write access for this application to those users in a specified role. For Tomcat, enter the role whose members will have write access to the application. For WebSphere or WebLogic, this information should be set up in the application server.
  6. Enter a Session Timeout to setthe J2EE session timeout, which is the idle time before a user's session times out. The timeout value is in minutes.
  7. The Show HTML Links on Application Page setting is included for use by current Java client users only. It is used to indicate whether a link to an HTML rendered version of this application is accessible from the list of applications under the Applications tab. This setting is not applicable to non-Java client users.
  8. The Include on Applications Page option determines whether users will see this application on the their view of the Application page (under the Applications tab). The default value is Yes.
  9. By default, the Default Render Mode is set to DHTML. If your specific application requires the printer mode as the default setting, you can change the application default setting here; otherwise, the printer mode option is accessed primarily using JSP tag attributes.
  10. Use the Header Links feature to set up links from the members displayed on a grid to open a URL or to perform some javascript. Add unique member names and URLs or other valid URL text in the Header Links text box, inserting a line break between each entry with the following syntax:

    Member = URL

    For example, to create a link to http://www.ibm.com from a member named Alphablox, enter the following into the Header Links text box:

    IBM = http://www.ibm.com

  11. Click the Save button to save the application definition.

Users can now access the application via the Applications tab or directly by specifying the URL.

To edit an application definition:

  1. Select an application context name from the Applications list box.
  2. Double click the application name or click the Edit button to edit the application.
  3. Make your changes.
  4. Click the Save button.

To delete an application definition:

  1. Select the application name from the Applications list box.
  2. Click the Delete button.

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