Remote Clients Setup

Client Types

The platform can accept multiple clients.

• Windows (WPF) Rich Clients
• Windows (WPF) Smart Clients
• HTML5 Clients

We will describe what is required for the installation and configuration of each one of these clients.

Remote Client Users Setup

Windows Rich Clients

Rich clients are client applications that do a significant amount of processing on the client computer rather than on the server. You can deploy your application to be used by Windows rich clients.

Windows Smart Clients

Smart clients are client applications that behave like rich clients but either run from the web or can be installed painlessly with a single click. You can deploy your application to be used by Windows smart clients. The smart client runs like the rich client, but it uses ClickOnce™ installation. This technology allows you to have the same functionality as the rich client without having to install our platform on your computer.

The first time you access the application, the system automatically downloads the components necessary to run the application. The next time you access the application, the system verifies if the local cache is the same version of the application that is on the server, and if necessary, updates the local cache before running the application. If the version is the same, the application starts immediately.

Automatically Starting Windows Clients

Depending on the client type, you can create a shortcut to the appropriate executable to automatically start the application on a Windows client. You can create the shortcut on the desktop or place it in the Startup folder, as described below.

For web clients, you can configure the application as the home page for Internet Explorer.

Go to Start → All Programs, right-click the Startup folder, and select Open to open the Startup folder.

• In the Startup folder, right-click and select New → Shortcut.
• In the Create Shortcut window, paste the path into the input field.
• If you are not using redundancy, delete the redundancy part of the text.
• Do one of the following:
  • For rich clients—At the beginning of the command line, enter or paste the full path to the platform's installation folder and put quotes around it. It should look something like this: "<installFolder>TRichClient.exe" /ip1:<IP_address>
  • For smart or web clients—At the beginning of the command line, enter or paste the full path to the Browser installation folder and put quotes around it.
• Click Next.
• Enter a name for the shortcut.
• Click Finish.

The next time you restart the computer, the project will start automatically.

Auto-Start SmartClient or HTML5 clients

Helping to deliver maximum uptime for your users, the Auto-Start SmartClient (ASSC) is a self-healing watchdog application that helps ensure your remote SmartClient applications are always up and running.

The Auto-Start SmartClient can also act a WatchDog Application, restoring automatically all the connected clients then the server

1. The ASSC periodically checks to ensure the TSmartClient is running.
2. If not, then the ASSC checks to see if it can reach the Project on the Project Server.
3. And if it can, the ASSC will restart the TSmartClient automatically for you!

Configuration Overview

The Auto-Start SmartClient watchdog application is used to automatically start the TSmartClient in your project's remote stations. When installing the software, the file AutoStartSmartClient.exe will be added to the installation folder.

In the current version, the files AutoStartSmartClient.exe and AutoStartSmartClient.exe.config must be manually copied from the server station's installation folder to a folder on the remote station. After copying the ASSC application to the remote station, the user must configure the .config file; otherwise, the ASSC will start up with several parameters that will take priority over any parameters in the .config file.

When the ASSC application is running on the remote station, it will check every 30 seconds to see if the TSmartClient is running, or the user can set a time parameter for how often the application checks.

If the TSmartClient is not running, the ASSC application will refer to its configuration parameters to check for any communication with the server station. If the ASSC application is able to connect with the project through the TServer on the server station, it will restart the TSmartClient on the remote station using the URL parameter.

Parameters Configuration

Before running the application, you need to set the parameters in the AutoStartSmartClient.exe.config file. You can also pass the parameters by using a shortcut file.

The available parameters are:

Configuration Example

To pass the parameters in the AutoStartSmartClient.exe file, you must create a shortcut to the file in a folder on the remote station. To do so, go to the installation folder and search for the executable.

Right-click on the file and select Create Shortcut. Then, place it in the desired folder. In order to finalize the configuration, right-click the newly created shortcut and select Properties.

Configure the file path as:

AutoStartSmartClient.exe /url:http://<IP Address>/<binary folder>/TSmartClient.application /timer:<seconds>

E.g.: AutoStartSmartClient.exe /url:http://192.168.15.31/xx-8.1/TSmartClient.application /timer:30

The url can be copied from the Engineering environment at Runtime → Smart Client url field. See the image below:

After setting the configurations, double-click the shortcut file and keep it running. You should see a window open with a message saying the application is waiting for the TServer to run. Once the project is executed, the TSmartClient will open automatically.

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