Those are very good news, because it makes easier initiatives like ours. Is it possible that in the future we take advantage of this work? It seems that the Java client approach is the most popular option in our group until now.<br>
<br><div><span class="gmail_quote">2008/2/29, Andrew Rowley <<a href="mailto:Andrew.Rowley@manchester.ac.uk">Andrew.Rowley@manchester.ac.uk</a>>:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div link="blue" vlink="blue" lang="EN-GB">
<div>
<p><font color="navy" face="Arial" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: navy;">Hi,</span></font></p>
<p><font color="navy" face="Arial" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: navy;"> </span></font></p>
<p><font color="navy" face="Arial" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: navy;">Part of the project is developing a better
bridge interfacing architecture, so other bridge types (other than QuickBridge)
can be used. I have previously developed a StaticBridge, which is one that
uses fixed UDP port numbers regardless of the venue (e.g. 4 fixed ports for
audio and video), and have now written a prototype TcpBridge which passes all
traffic through a single outgoing TCP port. Interfaces for these bridges will
be included in the final release, so as long as a TcpBridge is running, clients
should be able to connect from anywhere. PAG will also feature network
configuration detection which will attempt to work out if multicast is
available and which bridges can be used in the event of a multicast failure.
Then, when multicast does not work, it will seamlessly (well, maybe with a
couple of seconds delay) switch to bridged mode. PAG also features
Client-level bridging, which means that all the AG traffic passes through a
bridge in the client. This allows the changing of venues, encryption and
bridges without needing to close the AG service tools (e.g. vic and rat), so
that you don't have to rearrange your video windows.</span></font></p><span class="q">
<p><font color="navy" face="Arial" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: navy;"> </span></font></p>
<p><font color="navy" face="Arial" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: navy;">Andrew </span></font><font color="navy" face="Wingdings" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Wingdings; color: navy;">J</span></font><font color="navy" face="Arial" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: navy;"></span></font></p>
<div>
<p><font color="navy" face="Times New Roman" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: navy;">---------------------------------------------------------<br>
<br>
Andrew G D Rowley<br>
Senior Development Officer<br>
<br>
Research Computing Services<br>
The University
of Manchester<br>
Kilburn Building, Oxford Road<br>
Manchester, M13 9PL<br>
<br>
t : +44 (0) 161 275 0685<br>
e : <a href="mailto:Andrew.Rowley@manchester.ac.uk" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">Andrew.Rowley@manchester.ac.uk</a><br>
w : <a href="http://www.manchester.ac.uk/researchcomputing" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">www.manchester.ac.uk/researchcomputing</a><br>
<br>
---------------------------------------------------------</span></font></p>
</div>
</span><div>
<div style="text-align: center;" align="center"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;" lang="EN-US">
<hr align="center" size="2" width="100%">
</span></font></div>
<p><b><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma; font-weight: bold;" lang="EN-US">From:</span></font></b><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma;" lang="EN-US">
<a href="mailto:shamantobi@gmail.com" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">shamantobi@gmail.com</a> [mailto:<a href="mailto:shamantobi@gmail.com" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">shamantobi@gmail.com</a>] <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">On Behalf Of </span></b>Luis Galárraga<br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> 28 February 2008 18:26<br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> <a href="mailto:Andrew.Rowley@manchester.ac.uk" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">Andrew.Rowley@manchester.ac.uk</a><br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Cc:</span></b> Thomas D. Uram;
<a href="mailto:ag-dev@mcs.anl.gov" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">ag-dev@mcs.anl.gov</a>; alejandro moreno; Alejandro Moreno; Ing. Verónica Macías;
Marisol Villacrés<div><span class="e" id="q_11864722190f3ca2_3"><br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re: [AG-DEV] Web client
for AG</span></div></span></font><span lang="EN-US"></span></p>
</div><div><span class="e" id="q_11864722190f3ca2_5">
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Hi,<br>
<br>
That solution is really interesting as I can see, however according to the
exposed ideas, our time and resources constraints make it a risky option. I
have another question. The idea of developing a web client is to make AG client
more ubiquitous and accessible to everyone. Do you use any kind of bridging for
cases in which the client does not have access to a multicast network??.</span></font></p>
<div>
<p><span><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">2008/2/28, Andrew Rowley <<a href="mailto:Andrew.Rowley@manchester.ac.uk" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">Andrew.Rowley@manchester.ac.uk</a>>:</span></font></span></p>
<div link="blue" vlink="blue">
<div>
<p><font color="navy" face="Arial" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: navy;">Hi,</span></font></p>
<p><font color="navy" face="Arial" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: navy;"> </span></font></p>
<p><font color="navy" face="Arial" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: navy;">We found that to enable the client to launch external
processes, you need something in addition to the web browser. We decided
to use java for this – in both applet and web application forms (an applet is
used to talk between the web browser and the web start). The web start
application does all the backend work, and the web browser is then used for the
gui front end. The communication to the web application side (which then
communicates to the AGTk server) is via AJAX
– we have designed an XMLRPC queuing system for this. This queue is also
used to receive events at the browser gui side (such as a user joining the
session).</span></font></p>
<p><font color="navy" face="Arial" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: navy;"> </span></font></p>
<p><font color="navy" face="Arial" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: navy;">One of the main issues we came across was coping with the
user refreshing the page. This is an issue for us because we are
developing in a portlet environment. Without this, we could have just said
that the page should never be refreshed I guess.</span></font></p>
<p><font color="navy" face="Arial" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: navy;"> </span></font></p>
<p><font color="navy" face="Arial" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: navy;">Andrew </span></font><font color="navy" face="Wingdings" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Wingdings; color: navy;">J</span></font></p>
<div>
<p><font color="navy" face="Times New Roman" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: navy;">---------------------------------------------------------<br>
<br>
Andrew G D Rowley<br>
Senior Development Officer<br>
<br>
Research Computing Services<br>
The University
of Manchester<br>
Kilburn Building, Oxford Road<br>
Manchester, M13 9PL<br>
<br>
t : +44 (0) 161 275 0685<br>
e : <a href="mailto:Andrew.Rowley@manchester.ac.uk" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">Andrew.Rowley@manchester.ac.uk</a><br>
w : <a href="http://www.manchester.ac.uk/researchcomputing" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">www.manchester.ac.uk/researchcomputing</a><br>
<br>
---------------------------------------------------------</span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: center;" align="center"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;" lang="EN-US">
<hr align="center" size="2" width="100%">
</span></font></div>
<p><b><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma; font-weight: bold;" lang="EN-US">From:</span></font></b><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma;" lang="EN-US"> <a href="mailto:owner-ag-dev@mcs.anl.gov" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">owner-ag-dev@mcs.anl.gov</a>
[mailto:<a href="mailto:owner-ag-dev@mcs.anl.gov" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">owner-ag-dev@mcs.anl.gov</a>]
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">On Behalf Of </span></b>Luis Galárraga<br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> 27 February 2008 23:09<br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> Thomas D. Uram<br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Cc:</span></b> <a href="mailto:ag-dev@mcs.anl.gov" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">ag-dev@mcs.anl.gov</a>;
alejandro moreno; Alejandro Moreno; Ing. Verónica Macías; Marisol Villacrés<br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re: [AG-DEV] Web client
for AG</span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Thomas,<br>
<br>
Thanks a lot for your help. I feel there is light at the end of the tunnel!!!
However, as you can imagine, we have important time constraints. A web client
is one of our possibilities (my favorite one) and looks a hard matter. One
important point for us, is portability of the client, that is why we considered
the web approach. Other options are a lightweight client application written in
Python, an applet or a Java Web Start application . To start, we would just
implement audio and video transmission, then we could extend the application to
support all AG functionalities. I would like to know your opinion about these
options.<br>
<br>
And finally, would you recommend us to use AGTk 3.0? How feasible is it
considering the available resources until now??. Thanks again!!! <br>
<br>
Regards,<br>
Luis Galárraga</span></font></p>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">2008/2/27,
Thomas D. Uram <<a href="mailto:turam@mcs.anl.gov" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">turam@mcs.anl.gov</a>>:</span></font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Hi Luis:<br>
<br>
I'm the tech lead at Argonne for the Access
Grid project. I'm very<br>
interested in the work you are proposing, and have some comments:<br>
<br>
- The API documentation has not, as you've noticed, been updated for<br>
AG3. This needs to be done. I could generate
documentation of the web<br>
services interfaces fairly easily, which is necessary since there have<br>
been some changes from AG2.<br>
<br>
- There are a couple ways to approach a web-based client. One is to<br>
build an "adapter" between the VenueServer and the web browser; this<br>
adapter would accept HTTP from the user, make SOAP calls to the AG<br>
VenueServer, and return HTTP responses to the user. I wrote a basic<br>
example of this here: <a href="http://www.accessgrid.org/node/971" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">http://www.accessgrid.org/node/971</a> . Another,<br>
possibly better solution, would be to make the SOAP calls at the client<br>
using a JavaScript SOAP implementation. Both of these leave open the<br>
question of how to handle the audio and video.<br>
<br>
It's a priority for us to update the documentation, but I can't promise<br>
when that will be done. If we can help answer questions in the<br>
meantime, please don't hesitate to ask either here on the ag-dev list,<br>
or by emailing me directly.<br>
<br>
Thanks,<br>
Tom Uram<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
On 2/26/08 3:06 PM, Luis Galárraga wrote:<br>
> Greetings:<br>
><br>
> I am really interested in Access Grid Development as I take part in a<br>
> small community who is developing a software for videoconferencing<br>
> based on AGTk. At the moment, we are in the design phase and some of<br>
> us are analyzing the possibility of writing a web client for Venues.<br>
> Of course, there are certain constraints: we only need to use AG in<br>
> the easiest configuration, personal node. We would like to know your<br>
> opinions about this decision. How difficult and feasible is that?. (We<br>
> have discuss some technical facts and consequences). It is obvious<br>
> that the advantages of doing that are numerous.<br>
><br>
> Thanks in advance for your contributions to this topic.<br>
><br>
> Regards,<br>
> Luis Galárraga</span></font></p>
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<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></font></p>
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</blockquote></div><br>