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What are the DevKit pre-requisites?

The Mandoforms Developer Kit and Shareware uses Java in order to provide a cross-platform solution for developers.

The recommended (but not minimum) system requirements are:

  • 750MHz Pentium PIII or SPARC equivalent
  • 256MB of RAM
  • 60MB of free disk space
  • A graphics card and display device capable of displaying >256 colours
  • Windows ME/2000/XP/2003, Linux (Kernel v2.2.12 or above), Solaris7 or above, Other UNIX capable of running Java 1.3 or above

Depending on your operating system, there are versions of Mandoforms available with or without Java included. The version without Java is much smaller, but you will need a separate copy of Java installed for the software to work. You can use either the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) or Java Development Kit (JDK).

The software has been tested and designed to work optimally with Java 1.3. The software may not operate at all with earlier releases of Java.

Please note that you can obtain the latest version of Java for Windows, Solaris and Linux from http://java.sun.com. For other platforms try the appropriate OS website.

What are the Server pre-requisites?

The Mandoforms Test Server contains its own built-in web server and servlet engine. However, the Enterprise Server requires a standard Web server and a servlet engine in order to operate. Hence the recommended (but not minimum) system requirements are:

  • 750MHz Pentium III or SPARC equivalent
  • 256MB of RAM
  • 80MB of free disk space
  • Web Server
  • Java 1.3 or above
  • Servlet engine supporting Java Servlet API 2.2+
  • Windows ME/2000/XP/2003, Linux (Kernel v2.2.12 or above), Solaris7 or above, Other UNIX capable of running Java 1.3 or above

Some Web servers such as iPlanet include a servlet engine. Other popular servers, such as Apache, IIS and Zeus, require add-on servlet engines. For the latter we recommend you use TomCat 3.3.1 from Apache, to provide the servlet engine required.

Why doesn't the Builder/Test Server run?

If you have installed the 'no_JRE' version of the software, please ensure that your PATH contains a reference to your own Java Runtime Environment (JRE) or Java Development Kit (JDK).

If you deselected 'JRE' when installing the software, and do not already have Java installed you will need to reinstall the Builder.

If the Builder does not start or if the message 'Cannot find the file javaw' appears then you may be running an early release of our software. Please download the latest version (at least v1.2).

Why don't the forms appear?

If your web page displays the message 'Your Browser does not appear to support Compressed Java Applets' where your form was expected, then you need to turn on support for Java Applets in your browser. You can do this as follows:

Netscape v4 -> v7 and Mozilla

Tick the appropriate box in:

Edit-->Preferences-->Advanced

IE v4 -> v6

Go to the following menu item:

Tools-->Internet Options-->Security

Select the appropriate security zone and press the 'Custom Level' button. Finally, tick the appropriate box in the 'Microsoft VM' section.

Do Mandoforms support old browsers?

HTML-based Mandoforms use simple HTML tags are so are compatible on the widest range of browsers including some very old ones.

Applet-based Mandoforms work on I.E v4 and above, and Netscape v4.1 and above.

With applet-based Mandoforms we recommend that you use the 'device detection' facility on the Mandoforms Server in order to serve up Mandoforms using the appropriate <applet> tags to support older browsers and browsers on certain Unix platforms.

Please note that the Shareware Builder does not support 'device detection' and so creates a Mandoform Applet encapsulated within a single compressed .zip file. This means that the Mandoform will not work if you are using a browser that does not support compressed zip files, for example, older versions of Netscape Navigator on certain Unix platforms.

How do I display debug statements?

To generate debug statements permanently for a form simply tick the 'debug' option on the advanced page of the Builder. Alternatively, to see debug statements whilst the form is running, type #d into the status bar. Note that when you are using the Test Server, debugging is turned on by default.

With HTML-based Mandoforms debug statements appear in the source of the HTML pages returned by the Mandoforms Server. Depending on your browser you can normally right mouse click on the HTML page displayed and select 'view source' to view these debug statements, which you'll find near the top of the HTML page.

With applet-based Mandoforms your browser's Java Console is used to display debug and error statements sent by the Mandoform whilst it is running. 

To turn the Java Console on with IE v4 and above; tick the 'Java Console Enabled' box in the following menu item and then restart the browser:

Tools-->Internet Options-->Advanced-->Microsoft VM

To view the Java Console with IE v4 and above; select the menu item:

View-->Java Console

With Netscape and Mozilla the Java Console is always enabled if you have Java support turned on.

To view the Java Console with Netscape v4; select the menu item:

Communicator-->Tools-->Java Console

To view the Java Console with Netscape v6 or v7; select the menu item:

Tasks-->Tools-->Java Console
 

To view the Java Console with Mozilla; select the menu item:

Tasks-->Web Development-->Java Console

Are Apple Macs Supported?

At this time you cannot run the Builder or Test Server on Macintosh machines. The forms themselves will run with some restrictions:

Mac OS/X 10.1+

HTML Mandoforms work with both IE and Netscape browsers.

Internet Explorer v5/v6 both work with applet Mandoforms. There is a bug with Java support in Netscape v6. We recommend that you upgrade to v7 or use the latest Mozilla browser.

Mac OS/9

HTML Mandoforms work with both IE and Netscape browsers. There are various problems with different versions of Internet Explorer and Netscape when trying to run applets. So we recommend that they are not used with this platform.

How do I specify the correct server port?

In the Builder, with the 'Submit to Mandoforms Server' button action: If you do not provide a port number for submitting to the Mandoforms Server, it will default to the port it was served from (port 80 for http and port 433 for https). If this is not what you require then enter the correct port number.

How do I force users to tick a checkbox?

If you do not select the 'use label' option for checkboxes, the field will be set to the value 'true' or 'false' depending on whether or not the box is checked. This means that an unchecked box will always pass the 'Required' test as it always has a value (i.e. true or false)

Hence in order to 'force' the use to tick or untick a checkbox, you must select the 'use label' option in the Builder.

How do I check that caching is working?

The <applet> tag for caching Mandoforms should be put on any page that a user may visit prior to viewing a real Mandoform. It should be put at the bottom of any such page so that any 'real' page content such as images will load first and not disturb the client's experience of your website.

If the client browses any of these pages containing the caching <applet> tag, the browser will download the java code archive (mandoforms.zip) in the background, without the user realising. We have tested this process and for most modern browsers (version 4+), the archive will continue downloading from the last byte previously downloaded. So if a client downloads about a third of the archive and then navigates to another page with the same caching <applet> tag, the archive will continue downloading from the very next byte.

Eventually the user will get to the page containing the actual form. In most cases this will be a dynamic page generated using the device detect feature of the Mandoforms Server. As the <applet> tag generated by the server should contain a base-ref tag exactly the same as the codebase tag used to cache the archive, the browser should continue downloading the archive from the last byte received, or if it has been fully downloaded, simply proceed to display and run the applet.

However although the applet code has been fully downloaded there is still the form definition that must be downloaded before the form can be displayed. The form definition is the formname.xml file that you will have copied to the forms directory in the mandoforms web-app. This download will take some time to download depending on the size of the form.

Now we should define exactly what the user will experience: When viewing a page containing a Mandoform, whether defined statically using an <applet> tag in a .html file, or dynamically via a URL to the Mandoforms Server, the process is exactly the same. The browser will lay out the page with its text and images and also the applet. As the <applet> tag defines how big the applet is to be, the browser will reserve some screen 'real estate', say a 300 x 400 pixels. If the code has not been downloaded previously through caching, the applet will first appear as a grey box. So if you see a grey box on opening a form page, this is a sign that the applet has not been fully cached.

When the applet code has downloaded the applet will run. The first thing it does is display a splash screen. This defaults to a white background with a Mandoforms logo. While this is displaying the applet tries to download the form configuration XML. When the xml has been fully downloaded the applet displays the form and the user may proceed to fill it in.

You should bear in mind that once a Mandoform applet has been downloaded, either via a caching <applet> tag or as the proper form, the applet code resides in the browser cache. Only by restarting the browser will you clear the cache, and the applet must be downloaded again.

So to test, we would advise waiting on a cache page for a fair while, just to ensure that the applet has fully downloaded. Then proceed to the URL with the form on it. If a grey box appears for a longish time, the applet hasn't been cached. If it is just the splash screen that displays for a long time, the caching is working, but the configuration XML is taking time to download.