INTERNET IN/OUT BOARD

The Internet In/Out Board is a multi-user application that mimics the traditional wall board but can be used over the Internet by groups of people who may or may not be centrally located. Each person on the board can be marked "in" or "out" and can have a comment associated with their name. Additionally, a message for the entire group can be placed at the bottom of the window.

 Each board interacts with a server somewhere which manages the communications between apps. The same Java program can work as either a socket-based daemon, providing real-time updates over, say, an intranet; or as a CGI program providing updates at a configurable frequency to users who may only have http access (e.g. to users behind different firewalls).

 The app runs equally well as an applet in a browser or as a standalone application. It is primarily designed to run as a standalone Java app, however (see below).

Download

• Version 1.2 (updated March '98 for IE4 and Netscape4)
• Version 1.1 (the original)

Sections

• Usage
• Known Bugs

Usage

The Basics

• Click on the "in" or "out" cell to mark a user in/out. When changing in/out status the person's comment will automatically be removed.
• Double-click on the comment field to enter a comment for a person in the popup window.
• Double-click on the group message area at the bottom of the window to enter a message in the popup window. Messages can be marked "normal" or "urgent"; each will have it's own color if configured to (see below).
• When running standalone some functionality can also be accessed through the menubar. Additionally, canned comments can be selected from the menu.
• As a standalone app, the window can be resized to allow you to see more people and longer messages.
• A server must be present somewhere to manage communications. There are two options:
1. If all users have direct socket access to a common machine: Run the InoutServer class on the common host and point all the apps to it using the -host (standalone) or Host (applet) parameter.
2. The HTTP/CGI method: Modify the supplied InoutServer.pl script (or write your own variant) and set it up as a CGI script which invokes the InoutServer class as shown in the sample script. Then point the front-ends to it (e.g. -cgi http://hostname/cgi-bin/InoutServer.pl or <PARAM NAME=CGIServer VALUE=http://hostname/cgi-bin/InoutServer.pl>. After every invocation the program will save the current state of the board to disk. Be sure to point all the apps to the appropriate CGI script.

 For performance reasons, when using this method updates to the board are batched and sent to the server at 30 second intervals (only if needed, of course). The server is polled every 2 minutes (this is configurable) for changes made by others.

• Different instantiations of the app may have a domain name associated with them. This allows one server to service multiple groups of people, rather than having to run multiple servers.

Running it as an Applet

The following applet parameters can be set:

Name                    Type    Description
----                    ----    -----------
People                  String  A pipe separated list of people's names (required)
HdrBGColor              Color   Background color of the header (optional)
HdrFGColor              Color   Foreground color of the header (optional)
GroupMsgNormalFGColor   Color   Foreground color of a "normal" group message (optional)
GroupMsgUrgentFGColor   Color   Background color of a "normal" group message (optional)
GroupMsgNormalBGColor   Color   Foreground color of an "urgent" group message (optional)
GroupMsgUrgentBGColor   Color   Background color of an "urgent" group message (optional)
PegColor                Color   Color of the in/out peg (optional)
NameColor               Color   Color of people's names (optional)
CommentColor            Color   Color of the comments (optional)
BGColor                 Color   The board background color (optional)
BorderStyle             String  IN|OUT|BORDER_IN|BORDER_OUT|NONE (optional)
Domain                  String  The domain (user group) name (optional)
Host                    String  The host name of the Inout server, does not attempt to connect if host not specified
Port                    int     The server port # on Host (optional, default = 7001)
CGIServer               URL     The server CGI script URL (mutually exclusive with host & port)
CGIPollSecs             int     The interval (in seconds) to poll the CGI server for changes (optional, default = 120)

Running it as a Standalone App

Usage: java inout.Inout parameters

The following parameters can be set:

-people people_list             A pipe separated list (e.g. "Joe|Jack")
                                OR a filename in the form "@filename" where the file contains a list of people, 1 per line
[ -comments comment_list ]      A pipe separated list of comments
                                OR a filename in the form "@filename" where the file contains a list of comments, 1 per line
[ -host host_name ]             The host where the server is running
[ -port port_num ]              The server port # (default = 7001)
[ -cgi http_url ]               Server CGI URL (mutually exclusive w/host & port)
[ -pollsecs seconds ]           Polling frequency when using CGI server
[ -domain domain_name ]         A board domain name
[ -help ]                       A help message

Available properties:

inout.width
inout.height
inout.NameColor
inout.PegColor
inout.CommentColor
inout.HdrBGColor
inout.HdrFGColor
inout.GroupMsgNormalFGColor
inout.GroupMsgUrgentFGColor
inout.GroupMsgNormalBGColor
inout.GroupMsgUrgentBGColor

Running the Server

Usage: java inout.InoutServer parameters

The following parameters can be set:

[ -port portNum | -cgi ]        A port number to listen on; or expects to be invoked via CGI program
[ -debug ]                      Show debugging info
[ -help ]                       A help message

CGI Method Note: The only way I've been able to figure out how to run a Java program as a CGI processor is to wrap it with a Perl script like so. The name of the wrapper URL should be the "-cgi" or "CGIServer" parameter given to the app.

Known Bugs

Windows 95

• When running as a Netscape applet there is about a 5 second delay before the first mouse click on a peg area takes effect (moving the mouse around seems to reduce the lag time).
• About a 2 minute delay to create a socket when no TCP/IP driver is active.
• Dismissing a popup frame often sends the entire application/applet to the bottom of the window stacking order.

Windows NT

• The "Comment" menu does not immediately appear active (un-grayed) after the first person's name is highlighted. However, it does respond when pressed. (also under Windows 95)

Solaris 2.4

• There is something wrong with the socket handling under Netscape 2.0, causing the receipt of the first message (when using the socket-based server) to fail with an "Invalid argument" message. Subsequent messages are received correctly. This seems to be a Netscape problem as it works fine using appletviewer and as a standalone app.
• Frame.setResizable(false) does not prevent the popup frames from being resized.