Installing and configuring the AFP Web Viewer

The AFP Web Viewer helps users view AFP documents. The viewer must be distributed to all users and they must install it on their workstations.

Before you begin

Review the viewer requirements to ensure you have installed the prerequisites.

To install and configure the AFP Web Viewer on your users workstations, do the following tasks:

  1. If you plan to distribute user-defined files with the AFP Web Viewer, configure the AFP Web Viewer installation file to hold the user-defined files.
  2. Distribute one of the following files to your users and instruct them to close their browser, run or extract these files on their workstations, and restart their browser:
    afpplgin.exe
    The IBM® Content Manager OnDemand AFP Web Viewer for all languages that include DBCS support. This file is a self-extracting file.
    afpplgin.zip
    The IBM Content Manager OnDemand AFP Web Viewer in a compressed file format for all languages include DBCS support. Instruct your users to uncompress the file and then run the setup.exe program to install the viewer.
    You can find these files in the following subdirectories:
    • The following information applies to OnDemand for Multiplatforms.in the plugins subdirectory where ODWEK was installed
    • The following information applies to OnDemand for z/OS/usr/lpp/ars/V10R5M0/www/plugins
    • The following information applies to Content Manager OnDemand for i./QIBM/ProdData/OnDemand/www/plugins

The installation process copies the viewer and its associated files to directories of the user's choice. The installation program installs the viewers as ActiveX controls for Internet Explorer. The AFP Web Viewer requires approximately 36 MB of space on the workstation. The Image Web Viewer requires approximately 2 MB of space on the workstation. Remind your users to restart their browser if it was active during the installation process.

About this task

Most customers use one of the following ways to distribute the viewer files from a server, depending on whether they plan to distribute user-defined files with the AFP Web Viewer:
  • Standard Installation. This method distributes the AFP Web Viewer files supplied by IBM and prepares for distributing user-defined files with the AFP Web Viewer. When an administrator installs the ODWEK software on the Web server, the installation files for the viewers are stored in a directory on the server. There is an installation file (with the file extension of .EXE) for each viewer and a ZIP archive file for the AFP Web Viewer. The administrator typically moves the installation files to the public directory on the server and creates a web page with the links to the files. A user installs a viewer by loading the web page into their browser and activating the link to the appropriate installation file.
  • Custom Installation for the AFP Web Viewer. This method distributes user-defined files with the AFP Web Viewer.

Procedure

To create a custom installation, do the following steps:

  1. Set up the server for a Standard Install.
  2. Before any users actually install the viewer, obtain a copy of the AFP Web Viewer ZIP archive file.
  3. Extract the files from the ZIP archive file to an empty work directory.
  4. Add subdirectories to the work directory and store user-defined files in the directories.
  5. After all of the directories and files are configured, create a self-extracting .EXE file for distribution.
  6. Replace the .EXE file provided by IBM for a Standard Install with the self-extracting .EXE file that you created.
  7. After an administrator completes steps 1 through 6, users can install the AFP Web Viewer and the user-defined files by loading the web page into their browsers and activating the link to the updated installation file.