HotJava Views

HotJava Views includes the browser and a set of office productivity tools. HotJava Views offers the following integrated components:

• Selector - An environment manager with a pushbutton interface for switching between applications.

• MailView - An IMAP4 mail client for composing, sending, and saving messages and handling a variety of attachments.

• CalendarView - A calendar client for managing personal and group calendars

• NameView - An enterprise name directory service client that retrieves and displays a configurable set of fields and enables contact via email, URLs, and calendar data

• WebView - An HTML 3.2-capable web browser (URL access can be restricted by the system administrator)

Like HotJava Browser, HotJava Views can be deployed to the JavaStation computers via static linking (Chapter 6, Statically Linking an Application to the JavaOS Image ) or dynamic loading (Chapter 5, Dynamically Loading Applications ).

HotJava Views Model

HotJava Views enables the zero client-administration network computer and also attempts to minimize server-side administration. Users are organized into groups, and each group has its own profile, or set of properties.

Through HotJava Views Administration in Netra j, you can define groups of users that share client properties, specify applets to appear in the Selector, specify any sliding panels that appear from the edges of the screen, administer other properties that affect the user's desktop, and specify properties for particular network computers.

When the JavaStation client boots, a URL is passed to the Selector. The URL points to an initial configuration file. Once the Selector locates the web server, it loads HotJava Views' set of property files.

Properties

HotJava Views is controlled by a set of eight property files at the group, user, and client levels.

• User properties - User properties are stored in the user's home directory. Initial group properties are overridden by the user's individual property file.

• Group properties - Each user is normally a member of a group and inherits the group properties. Group properties are usually the main source of the final properties. Users who are not members of a group inherit the group properties of the group currently designated as the "default" group. There are both initial and final group property files.

• Client properties - Client properties are specific to a given network computer. They typically control a few items, such as the default printer, that are specific to the physical location of the JavaStation.