Complete Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1 Using Netshare
Chapter 2 About Web Server Publishing
Chapter 3 Installing and Configuring
Chapter 4 Web Publisher Quickstart
Chapter 5 Services and Menus
Chapter 6 Search
Chapter 7 Access Control
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Chapter 3 Installing and Configuring

Web Publisher is a Java applet that provides convenient client access to web server publishing. The default installation of iPlanet Web Server includes the Web Publisher applet with a home page.

This chapter discusses some basic information about installing and configuring Web Publisher and describes issues specific to the version of Netscape Navigator you are using. The chapter includes these sections:

There is an optional plug-in for users of the Netscape Composer component of Netscape Communicator that enhances Composer's editing and publishing capabilities to provide more seamless client access to server documents and folders.


The Web Publisher Home Page
The Web Publisher home page is included as part of the default iPlanet Web Server installation. From this page, you can launch Web Publisher, define the web publishing document directory, download the plug-ins appropriate for your system, and access online help.

To locate the Web Publisher home page, type in this URL:

http://yourServer/publisher

This displays the Web Publisher home page, which has a Start Web Publisher button as well as useful links: one for downloading the plug-in and several for accessing the online help system. After installing the plug-in for your system, you can start Web Publisher from this page.

When you launch Web Publisher, you need to identify which document directory you want it to use. By default, Web Publisher has the primary document directory as its scope. You can change this to point at a different folder on your server by choosing one from the drop-down list or by directly typing in the folder you want to use. Whichever folder you enter becomes added to the drop-down list for your future convenience. The list can hold 10 folders. If you add additional folders, the first ones you entered are deleted from the list.


The Web Publisher Console Window
When you start up Web Publisher, a special Web Publisher browser window appears on your screen, as shown in Figure 3.1, that provides a Java environment for Web Publisher. This browser window must remain open in order for you to be able to run Web Publisher.

Figure 3.1    The Web Publisher console window
Configuring Web Publisher
There are two configuration files that determine how Web Publisher works. One file, editor.txt, associates file types with applications that are to be launched when you open a file for editing. The other, nswppref.txt, stores information about your Web Publisher session such as your user name, window size, user preferences, and files being edited. These files are stored locally in your system in the folder that contains your Netscape Navigator program. For example, for a Windows user it might be in C:\Program Files\Netscape\Navigator. Typically, users do not need to modify these files. There are, however, some circumstances when you may want to make changes to these files.

This section discusses these topics:

The Editor Preferences File
Web Publisher allows you to associate a particular application with a given file type. When you edit a file, Web Publisher launches its associated application, which could be MS Word, MW Excel, Netscape Navigator's HTML Editor, or some other program.

The editor.txt file identifies which programs Web Publisher should use to edit files in different formats. By default there are entries in the editor preferences file to open HTML files in the editor part of your Netscape program, but you can add as many as you need to edit each of the different file types you work with. For example, if you have MS Word documents or GIF graphic files, you can edit them in MS Word or PaintShop Pro, respectively.

You can edit the file by using the Editors popup dialog box available through the Preferences command on the Edit menu. This command displays a dialog box listing your editor preferences, which initially includes entries for HTML files with the html and htm extensions.

To add other entries, follow these steps:

  1. Click the Add New button. The Set Editor Program dialog box is displayed.

  2. Enter the file extension for the given file type, either without or without the preceding period. That is, you could type doc or .doc to define an editor for word processing documents.

  3. Enter the exact line of code to launch the editor. In many cases this will simply be the full pathname for the executable program file. For example:
    4. C:\msoffice\winword\winword.exe

  4. Click the option "Use Communicator to edit directly on the server" if you do not want to create a temporary copy of the edited file on your local system during the editing process.
The Web Publisher Preferences File
The nswppref.txt file defines your Web Publisher session. There are many program details listed in the file that define internal configurations, such as the size of applet window, and there are others you access from the Preferences command on the Edit menu. Normally you do not need to make any modifications to this file.

There is one situation in which you might need to manually change to this file. This occurs when an unexpected file is listed in the Publish All Edited Files dialog box. This might happen, which may happen when a user manually unlocks an "in edit" file through the Properties page.


User Access Requirements
In order to use Web Publisher, you must be defined as a valid user with basic read or read-write permissions for iPlanet Web Server. See your server administrator if you have any questions about your user privileges.

The default access control for iPlanet Web Server is to permit any defined user to have write privileges to the server's files. Your server administrator can adjust this for a specific server. You can also adjust this for individual files and folders that you own by using Web Publisher's access control function. See Chapter 7, "Controlling Access," for more information.


For Communicator and Composer Users
This section applies to Web Publisher users who are using Netscape Communicator and its Composer component. The section discusses these topics:

Enabling Java
Web Publisher requires that you have Java enabled in your browser in order for the applet to run. To enable Java in the Netscape Navigator component of Netscape Communicator, do the following:

  1. From the Edit menu, choose Preferences.

  2. Select the Advanced set of preferences.

  3. Click Enable Java.
Installing the Composer Plug-in
With the Composer plug-in, you can seamlessly edit and publish files on remote web servers. This is an optional plug-in that adds special web publishing capabilities to the editing and publishing functions. It also adds the Web Publisher Lock and Unlock menu commands to the Tools menu, which allows Composer users to lock and unlock remote files. In this way, you can perform web server publishing directly from the Communicator software on your local desktop.

The instructions listed here for installing the Composer plug-in assume that your Netscape Communicator installation is in the default directory. For example, on a typical Windows system, the default document directory would be:

C:\Program Files\Netscape\Navigator

If you are using a different directory, be sure to adjust the paths as you install the plug-in.

To install the Composer plug-in, go to the Web Publisher home page, as described in "The Web Publisher Home Page," and follow the instructions there to download the plug-in. When you have installed the plug-in, you must restart Communicator to use the web publishing features in Composer.

Java Security Certificates
Web Publisher is a signed applet that requires users to grant access through a Java Security certificate. The first time you attempt a Web Publisher operation that accesses local files, a series of windows are displayed that allow you grant or deny access to the applet.

If you check the box to "Remember this decision each time I start Communicator," the Java security checking is handled afterwards in the background for you.

Page Services Menu Command
If you are browsing a server document in the Navigator component of Netscape Communicator, you can quickly access the file's web publishing information in the Web Publisher Services page by using the page services menu command.

To do this, follow these steps:

  1. Open a server document in the Netscape Navigator browser window.

  2. From the View menu, choose the page services command.
The Web Publisher Services form is displayed, providing the Properties page for the document you are browsing. You can use any of these web publishing features:

Using a Locally Installed Applet
You can set your server to use a copy of the Web Publisher applet that has been installed on your local machine. This can significantly improve the applet's performance.

To do this, follow these steps:

  1. Go to the Web Publisher home page, at http://<server>/publisher.

  2. In the center section, entitled "Netscape Communicator Users," click the link for the Smart Update to download a local version of the applet.

  3. On the Smart Update page, click the "Local Web Publisher" link at the bottom of the page. This installs a local version of the applet.

  4. To set this version to be the default applet, click the "Use Local Version" button.
For Internet Explorer Users
This section applies to those Web Publisher users who are using Microsoft Internet Explorer. The section discusses these topics:

Enabling Java
Web Publisher requires that you have Java enabled in your browser in order for the applet to run. To enable Java in Internet Explorer, do the following:

  1. From the View menu, choose Internet Options.

  2. Select the Advanced tab.

  3. Click JIT Compiler Enabled to allow Internet Explorer to create all Java applets automatically by using its internal compiler.
Java Security Certificates
Web Publisher is a signed applet that requires users to grant access through a Java Security certificate. The first time you attempt a Web Publisher operation that accesses local files, a series of pages are displayed that allow you grant or deny access to the applet.

 

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