run Jade Thin in the browser as an activex??

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by James Plank >> Wed, 9 Feb 2000 0:34:21 GMT

My concern for the Jade Thin client is maintaining the thin client on user machines. We go from an easy, low admin system when we use the web as an interface to a highly functional thin client that changes with every update. I may be wrong here as Im a relatively new user, a easy solution and a nice progression for the users of a web system is to use an activex.

If the Jade thin client connected via the internet and ran in the Internet browser as an activex, everytime we needed to upgrade their thin client, it would happen automatically.

I am different in that I develope in house products for our industry. Currently looking to install thin clients on 300 machines through out NZ, and the deployement issues have just dawned on me. At trhe rate that Jade is developing and adding functionality, maintenance is going to be a major issue.

Regards james Plank
Icon Communications

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by David Mitchell >> Thu, 10 Feb 2000 2:56:43 GMT

Why would you need to update the thin client everytime you update. If you mean everytime you use a new version of JADE on the servers, that shouldn't matter, because the JADE thin client doesn't have to do anything anyway, so the original thin client should still work (somebody tell me if I'm wrong).

Although I admit, that if you do have to update the thin client executable, then that is a big job, but there is software out there to help with that kind of mass deployment.

--
David Mitchell
JADE Kid - 1998
www.jadekids.com

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by Craig Shearer >> Thu, 10 Feb 2000 3:14:42 GMT

Hi David

No, that won't work because you need to keep the server and client binaries in synch. For example, you couldn't use a 5.0.14 client to connect to a 5.0.15 database, unless there were no changes to the client side binaries in that release (and that's pretty unlikely).

What I believe is needed is some automated feature in JADE that would allow a new version of the client binaries to be downloaded when required, completely transparent to the user (except for a progress bar, of course!)

Various people have attempted this in the past, and there are hooks in the product to allow you to write stuff to do it, but it really should be core in the product and not require everybody to invent their own solution to the problem.

Craig.

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by Robert Barr >> Thu, 10 Feb 2000 21:37:21 GMT

activex sounds like dll-hell. 'I downloaded the version of Jade that works with IE 5.00.2314.0006, and now my scheduler doesn't work'.

Sun's JAVA library release strategy has proved successful in a similar environment. Can JTC borrow anything from this maintenance model?

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by Allistar Melville >> Mon, 7 Aug 2000 11:12:07 GMT

Hi all,
We have written a small exe (in C++) that connects to a ftp site
first and checks if the binary files are up to date. If they aren't it automatically downlads them. In either case it then starts up Jade.
The beauty of this is it is absolutely seemless to the user. The
drawback is logging into the system takes a wee bit longer (maybe an extra 5 - 20 seconds).

Allistar.