root / pykoticon / trunk / README @ 3566

# $Id$

PyKotIcon - Client side helper for PyKota and other applications

(c) 2003-2013 Jerome Alet <alet@librelogiciel.com>
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.

====================================================================

PyKotIcon is a cross-platform client-side helper for PyKota.

It is meant to be launched whenever the user logs in, and stay in
the taskbar (depending on the client operating system) until the
user closes his session.

Installation :

  * GNU/Linux and similar :

    $ cd pykoticon
    $ python setup.py install

    Then modify your .xsession file, or the appropriate file depending
    on your desktop environment, to ensure that the pykoticon command
    is launched in the background each time your X Window session
    starts.

    You MUST pass the list of hostnames or IP addresses from which
    PyKotIcon should accept incoming connections on pykoticon's
    command line. Connections from localhost are always accepted.
    If you use PyKotIcon with PyKota, you'll want to pass the
    hostnames or IP addresses of ALL print servers on pykoticon's
    command line.

    NB : `pykoticon --help` will give you hints about the expected
    command line parameters.

  * MS Windows :

    Download pykoticon-x.yy.zip from

        http://www.pykota.com/software/pykoticon/download/tarballs/

    Unzip it into a directory of its own. I usually unzip it into
    /var/lib/samba/netlogon/pykoticon/

    Modify the PYKOTICON.VBS file to include the list of authorized
    print servers and change other parameters as needed, as explained
    in the GNU/Linux section above.

    Ensure that PYKOTICON.VBS is executed each time an user logs
    in. The easiest way to do this is in STARTUP.CMD :

      --- CUT ---
      SET PATH=%PATH%;\\MYSERVER\NETLOGON\PYKOTICON\
      \\MYSERVER\NETLOGON\PYKOTICON\PYKOTICON.VBS
      --- CUT ---

    NB : if you launch PYKOTICON.EXE directly instead of from
    PYKOTICON.VBS, a small but disturbing window may appear on
    the screen.


====================================================================


Usage :

  PyKotIcon is often used as a client side companion of the PyKota
  print accounting solution, with PyKota's pknotify command line tool
  acting as a PyKotIcon client. But in reality PyKotIcon is completely
  independant of PyKota, and can be used from any application
  which can do remote procedure calls over XML-RPC.

  PyKotIcon exposes 4 of its methods over XML-RPC, here they are :

    - nop :

      This methods does exactly nothing :)

      - Input : No argument.

      - Output : returns the True boolean value.

    - quitApplication :

      This method causes the PyKotIcon application to exit.

      - Input : No argument.

      - Output : returns the True boolean value.

    - showDialog :

      This methods displays an informational message, and returns
      the choice the user made, if any.

      - Input :

        - message : a Binary XML-RPC object representing an UTF-8 encoded
          character string which will be displayed to the end user.
          This string can contain literal "\n" sequences which will
          be automatically expanded into line breaks by PyKotIcon.

        - confirmation : a boolean value indicating if the user will
          be given the choice to valid or cancel (True), or only
          to valid (False) the dialog box.

      - Output :

        - the literal string "OK" if the user clicked on the OK button,
          else the literal string "CANCEL". The latter is only possible
          if the method was called with its second parameter set to
          True.

    - askDatas :

      This method can generate an input form and return what the user
      entered in the different fields.

      - Input :

        - An array of labels, one label per input field in the
          form to be created. Each label in the list is passed as
          a Binary XML-RPC object representing an UTF-8 encoded
          character string.

        - An array of variables names, one name per input field in
          the form to be created. Each name in the list is passed
          as an ASCII encoded character string.
          IMPORTANT : if one of these names is 'password' then this
          particular field's input box will be visually protected
          with * in place of the characters typed during input.

        - An associative array (e.g. Python mapping) of initial values.
          Each key is a variable name which must be present in the list
          above, and each value is a possibly empty initial content,
          which will be passed as a Binary XML-RPC object representing
          an UTF-8 encoded character string.

      - Output :

        - An associative array (e.g. Python mapping) containing the
          variables names as keys and the variables' contents as
          values in the following format :

          - Each key is an ASCII encoded character string representing
            the name of a variable to ask which was passed from the
            caller.

          - Each value is a Binary XML-RPC object representing an UTF-8
            encoded character string, itself being the result of user
            input in the form's field for this particular variable.

          - A special key named 'isValid' gives access to a boolean
            value in the associative array. If the value is True,
            then the input fields' contents are valid. If the value
            is False, then what the user typed in the input fields
            has to be discarded because, for example, the user
            closed the form without validating his entries.
            In this case, all the other values are empty strings
            anyway.


IMPORTANT : PyKotIcon doesn't currently support encrypted connections,
so if you're afraid of sensitive information flying in the clear
over the nework, you should probably install a transparent secure
tunneling software like stunnel on both sides of each connection.

====================================================================

Please e-mail bugs to the PyKota mailing list at : pykota@librelogiciel.com
or to the main author at : alet@librelogiciel.com (Jerome Alet)