Difference: AppxHTMLClient (6 vs. 7)

Revision 72014-12-12 - JeanNeron

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APPX HTML Client

This page gives an overview of and installation instructions for the Appx HTML client.

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Overview

The Appx HTML client is designed to allow you to connect to an Appx server and run Appx applications using a browser, either on the desktop, a tablet or a smartphone. When running the client in a browser, no software is required on the desktop, tablet or smart phone. When the user logs on, the necessary code is downloaded to their device as required.

In this release, you can only run the applications, you cannot design them. Specifically, the ILF editor, old ILF Debugger and Image Editor are not supported. You may be able to work in Application Design so long as you avoid those.

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<		The client will support SSL connections if your web server is configured appropriately. If not, the client will use it's own built in AES encryption so your data is still protected.
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>		The client will support SSL connections if your web server is configured appropriately. If not, the client will use it's own built in AES encryption but be aware that this is not sufficient to protect sensitive data.
  The Appx HTML client consists of two modules:
  • Web Server Files. These are the javascipt libraries and style sheets that make up the HTML client. These must be installed in your web server's document directory. These files are platform independent.
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  If your application does not require the ability to upload/download/open files on the desktop, you can turn this off (see Installation below).
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<		There is a 'Connectivity' indicator in the lower right corner of the browser window with the words 'Remote' and 'Local'. If 'Local' is in green, it means the LocalConnector is installed & runnning. Red means the connector is not installed. The 'Remote' connector refers to the connection to the Appx Server Connector. This must be green for any connection to work.
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>		There is a 'Connectivity' indicator in the lower right corner of the browser window with the words 'Remote' and 'Local'. If 'Local' is in green with a "+", it means the LocalConnector is installed & runnning. Red means the connector is not installed. The 'Remote' connector refers to the connection to the Appx Server Connector. This must be green with a "+" for any connection to work.
 

Differences between ADC and HTML Clients

The HTML client has a different presentation for most non-Appx elements such as Date Choosers, File Upload/download dialog boxes, Tables, etc. The goal of the HTML client was to replicate the presentation of your screens as accurately as possible as far as the Appx elements are concerned (i.e., the widgets and fields you use in the Image Editor). Since we use different 3rd party tools and runtimes for other elements, they will look different compared to the Appx Desktop Client.

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  Assuming the web server to which we installed the client is 192.168.0.15, and that we installed everything into an 'appx' folder on the web server, then we should be able to get a client login dialog box via:
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<		http://192.168.0.15/appx/client.html
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>		http://192.168.0.15/appx/client.html
  You must open port 3014 on your web server for this connection to work. If you do not want to open any new ports on your web server, see the next section 'Tunneling/Forwarding'.

LocalConnector

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  <meta name="appx-local-required" content="true" >
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>		Change the "true" to "false" to supress the requirement.
 

Tunneling/Forwarding

If you do not want to open port 3014 and would rather use port 80, you can use forwarding instead. For example, to configure Apache 2.4 you would do the following:

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  • Restart your web server

SSL

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<		If you are running a secure web server (https), you can configure the Appx HTML client to use your SSL connection. Change your /var/www/html/appx/client.html settings as follows:
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>		If you are running a secure web server (https), you can configure the Appx HTML client to use your SSL connection. Your web server must to configured to accept both SSL (https:) and non-SSL (http:) connections.

Change your "client.html" settings as follows:

  appx-proxy-host = hostname of httpd server (i.e., 192.168.1.11)
appx-proxy-port = “443"
appx-proxy-path = /appxwss/
appx-encryption = “ssl”
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<		Then change the sslEnabled setting in 'appxConnector.js':
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>		In 'appxConnector.js' change:
  var sslEnabled = true;
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>		 var sslPrivateKey = "/etc/pki/tls/private/appx.key";
var sslCertificate = "/etc/pki/tls/certs/appx.com.crt";
var sslCertAuthority = "/etc/pki/tls/certs/gd_bundle.crt";

Change the file paths to point to your SSL certificates.

Once you have made the above changes, restart the Server Connector and refresh the Appx Login page in your browser (if it was still loaded when you made these changes).

NOTE: You still use 'http://' to connect to the client page. The client will switch to the SSL connection once the page is loaded.

 

Styles

Many aspects of the presentation of the Appx Client are controlled by the APPX.css style sheet in the 'css' folder. If you are familiar with working with style sheets, feel free to experiment with different settings.

Troubleshooting

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  • If the client login dialog box does not display, check your web server error logs for any error messages & correct as required.
  • If you are getting "[proxy:error] [pid xxxx] (13)Permission denied:" errors, you might have a selinux security issue that prevents apache from initiating any outgoing network connections to the web socket server port. In that case, try the following command:
    # setsebool -P httpd_can_network_connect 1
  • Some browsers (like IE) will not run the client successfully if you double click the 'client.html' file. You should always access the web page via http://servername/client.html, even if the page is installed on your local system.
  • Check to make sure your Appx Server Connector is still running. If not, restart it via 'nohup ./node appxConnector.js &' for Linux or 'node appxConnector.js' for Windows.
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  • If the client login dialog box does not display, check your web server error logs for any error messages & correct as required.
  • If you are getting "[proxy:error] [pid xxxx] (13)Permission denied:" errors, you might have a selinux security issue that prevents apache from initiating any outgoing network connections to the web socket server port. In that case, try the following command:
    # setsebool -P httpd_can_network_connect 1
  • Some browsers (like IE) will not run the client successfully if you double click the 'client.html' file. You should always access the web page via http://servername/client.html, even if the page is installed on your local system.
  • Check to make sure your Appx Server Connector is still running. If not, restart it via 'nohup ./node appxConnector.js &' for Linux or 'node appxConnector.js' for Windows.
 

Known Issues

The following are the known problems with the HTML client. These are being worked and we hope to have them addressed by the final release.

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 Read what other users have said about this page or add your own comments.
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  -- JeanNeron - 2014-11-10
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