The ILLiad Web Previewer is here!

The ILLiad Web Previewer allows you to view, edit, and generate ILLiad 7.2 specific web pages without using a web server. The application replaces all the ILLiad specific tags with plain HTML on a page by page basis so that you can edit the pages and the CSS files and view the results without having to replace pages on the ILLiad web server.

The Web Previewer includes the pages for ILLiad 7.2 in the DefaultBorrowing and DefaultLending folders. You can also choose a custom folder and select a separate set of ILLiad web pages (including prior version of ILLiad pages).

NOTE: The ILLiad Web Previewer has been updated with all the latest files for ILLiad Version 7.3 as of July 23, 2008.

You can download the ILLiad Web Previewer here:

http://www.atlas-sys.com/communityfiles/ILLiadWebPreviewer20080723.exe

This is a self-extracting zip file. Download it and run it to expand the files (which defaults to c:\illiad\web previewer\).

The following readme file is included with the ILLiad Web Previewer as well.

Using the Web Previewer
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Once you extract the application and its files into a directory, simply run the application by double-clicking the IWP.exe file. You should leave this file in the directory. If you want to run it from your desktop, simply create a shortcut to it instead of moving the file.

When you open the ILLiad Web Previewer, you will see a folder menu and several tabs. The Folder menu allows you to select either the Default Borrowing or Default Lending folders with the 7.2 sample pages in them - or you can select the Custom option to choose a folder elsewhere. By default, the Default Borrowing folder is selected.

The HTML tab shows the currently selected HTML file. You can choose the file from the HTML File dropdown box. A good example to start with is one of the request pages - like ArticleRequest.html.

Once you select a file, the tabs are activated and show the current HTML code, the current related CSS code, and options and log tabs. The HTML can be edited and saved directly in the window. You can choose to edit with Notepad or your default editor by clicking the menu option at the top.

Once you edit a file to your liking, you can choose the Preview option to generate the ILLiad page and send it to your default browser (also by pressing F12) or you can choose a specific browser from the Preview menu. The page is displayed in your browser and saved as a temporary file.


Setup Options
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The Options tab allows you to configure different ILLiad data to show up in the different fields for testing purposes. The Parameters section includes a list of sample tags along with data that you can modify/remove/etc.

The Errors section shows what an example error will look like on your finished page (for example, a required field is not filled out). The included example is the Loan Title field which you can see when previewing LoanRequest.html, but you can replace/add/delete any error tag from the ILLiad pages.

The Status Message section shows the 3 types of possible status messages that ILLiad will display. You can modify these as you see fit as well.  Editing the text in the Options tab will only change the sample text for the Previewer and not affect your production ILLiad system.  Changing status line text for your production pages would still need to edited in the Customization Manager under Web Interface .. Status Lines.

The last section affects the number of random data table rows that appear in the web pages for testing purposes (for example, the default 20 rows shows up as 20 outstanding items on the ILLiad Main Menu screen). And the 4 alert types that ILLiad supports can be edited to be shown or not as well.


Notes
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The folder structures for the ILLiad files inside the extracted directory need to remain as they are. Do not delete the folders inside the temporary folder or the images and CSS won't display correctly in the generated pages.

The default HTML editor for Windows can be changed from the Internet Explorer Tools -> Internet Options menu on the Programs tab. The HTML editor selected there will be the Windows default editor.


Layout for ILLiad Pages
-----------------------

The new ILLiad 7.2 web pages included with the ILLiad Web Previewer are based on a CSS template. In most WYSIWYG HTML editors (like Dreamweaver), the tags that ILLiad includes will not show up correctly - hence the need for the Previewer. Some additional information about the page structures for the default borrowing pages follows.

The ILLiadMainMenu.html page html code is very small:


The page includes several other referenced HTML pages:

include_header.html: this page includes the ILLiad title as well as the default status messages and the search box for ILLiad.
include_menu.html: this page is the menu that shows up for navigation along the left-hand side of the different pages for ILLiad.
include_footer.html: this page shows the copyright for the ILLiad system

Since each include page is referenced in multiple ILLiad pages, if you want to change a link for the left-hand menu, simply changing the include_menu.html page will accomplish the change.

Formatting Changes with CSS
---------------------------

The included CSS files control all of the style formatting for the ILLiad pages. Making changes to the CSS styles will affect all of the ILLiad pages at the same time and can be reviewed using the ILLiad Web Previewer. Opening any ILLiad webpage will also open the CSS tab, which will show the CSS used for that page (which is the same CSS used by all ILLiad pages for the default included pages).

The Main.css page is used for the majority of formatting for all browsers.
The ie6_or_less.css page is used for a few corrections to formatting in IE browsers.
The Print.css page is used for having a different print style than the display style.

An example from the include_header.html page:


In our example, we'll review how to change the formatting for the word ILLiad to be different. In the HTML, the <div id> tag shows the CSS style associated with the word ILLiad is "title-name". Looking in the main.css file you can see that title-name is:


Replacing the appropriate tag will change the ILLiad title-name and any other instances of the title-name <div id> in the ILLiad Web Pages.  Note that this changes the format of the ILLiad title-name but not the word itself.  If you are renaming ILLiad to another name on your web site, you would need to replace the text in the pages.


Editing the CSS in Dreamweaver
------------------------------

(This document assumes a basic knowledge of Dreamweaver.)

When opening a main page for editing in Dreamweaver, the CSS is displayed as a drop-down box in the Properties box at the bottom of the default screen layout. For example, we'll look at changing the Note style on the ArticleRequest page. If you preview that page, a note is the smaller text underneath the different Field names: "Please do not abbreviate unless your citation is abbreviated".

- Open Dreamweaver
- Open the ArticleRequest.html page
- In the Design View, click the note from the above example under the Title field.
- In the properties view at the bottom, the style should be "note".
- Under the Window menu at the top, select CSS Styles (or hit Shift-F11). The CSS Styles show appear on the right hand side.
- For our example, we'll change the note style to be red. Click beside the color property in the CSS Styles tab and choose red. When you do this, Dreamweaver automatically opens the main.css sheet that is attached to the ArticleRequest.html page in a new tab. After the change, it will show that it needs saving.
- Click to the main.css tab and save the document.
- Switch back to the ILLiad Web Previewer and preview any page that uses the Note style and the notes will now be in red.



Getting Help
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The ILLiad Web Previewer will be supported through the Atlas Community Portal. If you have questions about how it works, visit: http://www.atlas-sys.com/community/

I noticed that the default location to install is c:\illiad\web previewer.  Can we change this location to say e:\illiad\web previewer?

Thanks.
Lisa

Sure - you can put the files in any directory you want.

Why are there seperate .css files in the default lending and default borrowing?  On first glance there don't appear to be too many differences between them.  My first task in working with this is combining them into a single .css file.  So far I don't see any need for the redundancy.  If I'm wrong and there is a reason that they shouldn't be combined, please let me know.  I've created a master .css folder in the Web Preview root and haven't had any problems so far.

I've got another question or two.  I'm assuming that the pages will be driven by a .dll file as in the current iteration of the web client.  Will this .dll be handling the #include statements?  I ask as they don't operate as SSI statements (I'm also assuming that they're not meant to be SSI statements), at least in a windows environement.  I supose another, slightly inconsequential question, is whether or not SSI will have to be enabled.

My second question is whether or not there is a way I can put these on our webserver in such a manner that my ILL crew will be able to view them?  I'd rather do this than put the previewer on each of their computers.

Thanks.

The structure is by default separated into Borrowing and Lending so that sites that wish to do so can use them independently in separate directories. By default, the CSS files are linked relative to the pages in each folder. Using one consolidated CSS file is perfectly fine as long as the CSS links in the pages are modified so that they are pointing to the consolidated file (either relatively or absolutely).

The include statement used in the pages is specific to the ILLiad DLL and is processed using the DLL. SSI is not required to be enabled on the web server.


The Preview menu has an option to save a rendered preview of each page that you can share with others. At this time, you will have to save each page you wish to share separately.

I am wondering if the use of the ILLiad Web Previewer will be a requisite for the correct performance of the ILLiad web pages or not.

In our case, at the Interlibrary Services of the University of Texas Libraries, we have customized the pages to a very large extent. We have developed our own CSS and some scripts to help in the ease of both design and maintenance. The look of our ILLiad pages has been tailored to be in agreement with our general web presence and that, of course, is of great importance to us.

In some previous note I have mentioned to you my concerns about the quality of the HTML that the illiad.dll produces—deprecated tags and incorrect tag order, among other problems— and I have noticed that the ILLiad Web Previewer insists in the same problems.

It is my understanding that the ILLiad 7.2 update will bring some new pages with it, will I be able to edit them without having to go through the Previewer?

If you see the Web Previewer producing incorrect HTML, please send us examples at service@atlas-sys.com

The Web Previewer isn't supposed to be a web editing package - it simply creates a sample page to see what the processed ILLiad page would look like on an ILLiad web server using the ILLiad.dll. All of the supplied web pages are still simple HTML with CSS - you can edit them with whatever editing package you prefer.

Current ILLiad pages should continue to work - but if you want to find out - you can test them as well using the Web Previewer. As for the scripts you've added - you're doing something outside the scope of a normal ILLiad installation so I don't know if they will work in the Web Previewer (if they are client-side - maybe; if they are server-side - definitely not).

We noticed that the include_menu.html page does not have a link to the renew page ViewRenewCheckedOutItems.html.  We want to add this, but I'm not sure how to tell what form number it ties into.  For example, a snippet from the include_menu.html page, "<li><a href="<#ACTION action="10" form="66">">Checked Out Items</a></li", shows that the ViewOutstandingRequests.html page is tied to form 66.  Where is this info located?

I am trying to work with the web-previewer to see how it works. I have added an <img /> tag with its corresponding well structured pathl. The good previewer does not show the image. When I open the page directly in its folder, it shows the image. I understand why opening the page directly in its folder it doesn't parse the include files; but why "previewing" the pages in the previewer does not preview the <img /> tags?

I realize that the previewer is just a tool to view the pages, but I was wondering about the defult status messages that are showing on the top of each page:

This is a normal status
This is an information status
This is an error status

We did a lot of work in customization  manager eliminating superfluous statuses on each page, do we need to redo that over again? If the customization manager doesn't have a value stored for a particular error/event, will these place holders still show up?

Also, we were already using CSS style sheets for our pages, which are referenced by a relative path.  I am looking at the pages on my computer, and my CSS files are in the same relative path on my local computer, but the previewer isn't finding my existing CSS file. am I going to have to update each page, or rename my CSS file so that the new dll can find it? 

I'm glad to hear that we can still continue to edit our pages if we have other existing methods like Dreamweaver.  is there a quick list somewhere of any new field names or other code syntax that will be different with the new DLL?

Is there any way we can get a full list of Available Action Numbers?

Thanks.
Lisa

Hi cquirion,

I wrote Genie asking some questions on the previewer; here I pasted my questionnaire with her answers. Some may help you.
alonso.

1; Those three lines about status on the header are there as a mock fill for the status line or rather are they meant to be there as a visual explanation of the conventions used for the status line?

***  The status lines are there as a visual explanation of what the various status lines would look like.  In nearly all cases your live status lines would only have one line.

2; When I use the the calls CGIFN=^VARFirstName^ CGIFN=^VARLastName^ in my html I get [Users] FirstName [Users] LastName in my screen.  Does it mean that once online the dll will fill correctly the user’s names or that those tags have been abandoned?

*** The old tag format of CGIFN=^VARFirstName^ still works in the new DLL because it translates them.  But the new DLL allows you to use the new parameters formatted like: <#PARAM name=”FirstName”> instead, so for any new pages you’re creating, I would use the new tag format.

3; How can I set the alert spaces in a non-display mood until I need them to actually show an alert? I would prefer to use that space and show alerts only when it is required.

*** The tag for the alerts themselves is just <#ALERTS> in the html, so you could add that and if there are no alerts, it would just be blank.  The alerts in the default pages are in a static sidebar in the html, but don’t necessarily have to be if you’d prefer to place them elsewhere. 

4; What is the estimated date we will be receiving the Web Reports pages. i understand that 7.2 will finish it's beta testing and released on January 24th. Our office closes on December 21st to reopen on January the second. That gives us about three weeks to do the redesign of the pages.

*** The web reports pages will be released with the general release on January 24th.  If we release the reports web pages ahead of time, we will post a separate link to them on the Community Portal for download.   

5. Do you have a script for adding the customary “Page viewed on – Last update on” line at the footer. I use a JavaScript that works fine but when it is parsed through the Web Previewer using IE it pops a line warning about active content. On Firefox works just fine, so I BELIEVE that in all other Mozilla-based browsers, Opera and Netscape will work well as well. 

*** There’s no script for this included in the ILLiad DLL functionality.

6; Does the previewer work on Mac? I would like to have the chance to test across platforms also.

*** The Web Previewer is a Windows based client.  You’ll be able to add your pages to a testweb folder on your server after the update to version 7.2 so that you can view them on your production server in a non-production location to test them against multiple browsers.

Thanks for the info, utils. It's good to know that there won't be excessive alerts going on if they're not needed.
Did Genie send you a list, or is there a list somewhere of all the new tags that will replace the CGIFN=VAR^etc^ with the new PARAMETER values?