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Play The Web 2008SE

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Play The Web 2008SE

Update options

If you manage a large quantity of computers, you would want to prevent all computers always requesting pages from HTTP server. Doing this, you will minimize the network traffic.

Play The Web is able to work off-line as Internet Explorer does, because every page accessed by HTTP is copied in a local cache. Using this copy, a page can be displayed even if the computer is off-line.

Internet Explorer cache is located in a "Temporary Internet Files" folder, in the current user profile.

Here are the options located in "Update" tab of Configuration dialog box:

Several update schemes are available:

• Always online (never check the connection to the network)
  This is the default mode. In this mode, the connection is assumed to be always online and the computer to be always connected to the network.
• Always online (except if disconnect from the network)
  In this mode, the connection is assumed to be always online and the computer to be always connected to the network.
  However, if a page doesn't load completely in the time defined by the "Maximum update time for each page" parameter, Play The Web checks the network connection by sending a HTTP request on the test URL. If this request fails, it switches to off-line mode so the web pages will be read from the local web cache. As soon as the network connection is up again, Play The Web switches back to online mode.
  Also, when Windows reports that the computer is not connected to any network, Play The Web automatically switches to off-line mode.
  You can also force Play The Web to reconnect to the network when disconnected. To achieve this, chek the "Force connection when disconnected from the network" check box.
  This mode is useful for pages that are ever changing, but it could lead to a lot of network traffic, because an HTTP request is sent to the server for every page.
• Always off-line
  In this mode, Play The Web uses only cache. It is the same that off-line mode in Internet Explorer.
  If a page doesn't exist in cache, it won't be displayed. No network traffic will result with this mode. Use it for pages that never change.
• Update every day
  This mode is useful if you manage many computers, because you will minimize network traffic. Updates will occur at a given time that you can input using an "hh:mm" entry box.
  At update time, the computer will switch to online mode, process one page loop and go back to off-line mode when every page is updated.
  If the computer is not connected to the network or switched off, update will occur later, when it is connected to the network.
  This mode is also recommended for laptop computers, because they are not always connected to the network.
  With this update policy, you can distribute update time: 20 computers at 02:00, 20 computers at 02:30, etc.
• Update once when screensaver is launched
  Play The Web will check connection at launch time. If it is connected, it will switch online, display one page loop and then switch off-line back when every page is updated.
  If not connected, it will display pages from the cache. This option can also be used with laptop computers.
• Update every day during a fixed delay
  This mode is similar to "Update every day" except for one thing. The software switches back to off-line mode after a fixed delay. You can input this delay in the dialog box. The software will go to off-line mode when the delay has occurred, even if all pages have not been updated.
• Update once when screensaver is launched during a fixed delay
  This mode is similar to "Update once when screensaver" except that the software switches back to off-line mode after a fixed delay. You can also input this delay in the dialog box.
• Update hourly
  In this mode, Play The Web will connect to the network hourly and display all pages included in the page loop before going back to the off-line mode.

Here is the options available in the Update tab when the "Update every day" update scheme is selected:

With this update scheme, you need to define the start time in the "Update time" entry field along with the "Maximum update time for each page" option (in seconds).

Now, you can see the options available when the "Update every day during a fixed delay" scheme is selected:

This update scheme is similar to the "Update every day" update scheme, except that you can define a global maximum update delay using the "Maximum update time for all pages" entry field.

Remark: If you display pages using a local address and not using an HTTP address, pages are not copied to the cache. For instance:

s:\intranet\quarter-results.html

"Update as soon as possible" button allows you to force Play The Web to update every page the next time theses pages will be displayed. This button is available when "Update scheme" is set to "Update every day" or "Update once when screensaver is launched".

The Maximum update time entry field allows you to specify the maximum time that Play The Web can wait to update a given web page. This delay is defined in minutes. If the update time for one page and its resources is longer that the time specified here, Play The Web abort update of the current page and displays the next page in the page loop.

The next part of the Update tab contains settings regarding the local cache handled by Play The Web. The Cache path is a local folder where the current user should have write access so Play The Web can create temporary files.

The default cache path defined by the setup procedure is:

%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Vaugouin\Play The Web

Where %USERPROFILE% is an environment variable containing the path of the profile for the current user. Using this part of the dialog box, you can update the cache path or use the Windows TEMP folder.

To check the content of the local cache, use the "Explorer" button: . This buttons opens a Windows Explorer that browses the cache path.

The "Use default" button replaces the current path in the entry field above by the default cache path.

Finally, the "Test cache path" button checks if the current user has write access to the current cache path. If not, this features suggests to use the default cache path where the current user should have write access because this folder is located under his profile.

The "Minimum size for a downloaded file to be cached" entry box allows you to define the minimum size of any downloaded file to be treated as a valid file. So, the value set here should be greater than the actual size of an HTTP error page.

In fact, when a file disappear on a web server, Play The Web may try to download it anyway because it was present in the result the last time the file list was retrieved. When a file disappear, the web server will deliver a not found (error 404) error page in place of the requested file. So, the value defined here is useful to discard HTTP error pages.

The default value for this setting is "0" (zero).

This setting applies only to the current .wss Configuration. It is related to the "CachedFileMinSize" Windows registry setting that applies to all .wss Configuration files used on a computer.

The "Update URL" parameter can be used to define the address of a .WSS configuration file stored on a web server. At the end of the page loop, this .WSS configuration file is downloaded and replaces the local copy of the running .WSS file.

When the "Replace default file parameter" option is checked, the update URL that is loaded at the end of the page loop becomes the default file for Play The Web. So next time the software will be launched, this URL will be automatically used to retrieve page list and other settings.