On Monday, July 12, 2004, 3:50:39 PM, R. wrote:
>>Something getting lost here in the discussion of the installation GUI is
>>the request from time-to-time for an end-user GUI.
RSP> This is something that we would love to do -- and would have been done
RSP> *years* ago if Ipswitch allowed third-party access to web messaging (with
RSP> about 20 lines of code, they could).
RSP> The problem is that it requires packets going to and from your mailserver
RSP> and your clients. If we don't use IMail's web messaging, we have to either
RSP> write our own webserver, or come up with our own protocol for transferring
RSP> the data. Worse, firewalls become a huge issue -- not only do you have to
I've had this idea on my back shelf - you know, for when I get a few
spare moments. ( I store those with my grove of money trees. )
At the risk of getting flamed, an XML based configuration could be
leveraged here as well. Consider:
An end-user GUI that sends and receives control messages (plain old
text email) to the server though a special email account. The software
being configured (in this case Declude) would intercept a properly
formatted message to the appropriate account and would interpret the
XML in the body of the message to make the required changes. A
response would be sent back to that email account, again with an XML
based packet of data, that indicates success, failure, or otherwise,
and/or provides additional data as needed - including any part of the
existing configuration that the end-user GUI might need.
In fact, this mechanism would work for the admin GUI as well - (the
two might even be parts of the same software).
____________
.... in case anybody is thinking this, yes this is part of a tool for
Message Sniffer, but we always intended to share it with Declude if
they would be interested once we had the time to present a prototype.
It's vaporware right now due to a lack of resources - but I hope the
concept starts a few wheels turning.
We use a similar concept right now to offer high-end users direct
access to their rulebase data. That is, we have a working tool called
RESCU (REmote SCripted Updater) that can be used to create rulebase
updates automatically without logging in to our online application.
That utility is written in Java and runs at the command line accepting
and producing XML files that contain the commands and responses
respectively.
____________
In declude it would go something like this:
<!-- Admin User Wants To Increase The SPAMCOP test weight -->
<!-- Admin utility sends this to get the current SPAMCOP test settings -->
<!-- Authentication stuff (assume its done) -->
<Declude-Base-Configuration>
<Tests>
<Test-ip4r id="SPAMCOP">
<List/>
</Test>
</Tests>
</Declude-Base-Configuration>
<!-- Declude config utility responds with this -->
<Declude-Base-Configuration>
<Tests>
<Test-ip4r id="SPAMCOP">
<List-Result>Success!</List-Result>
<Enabled>True</Enabled>
<Lookup>bl.spamcop.net</Lookup>
<Return>127.0.0.2</Return>
<Pass>0</Pass>
<Fail>10</Fail>
</Test-ip4r>
</Tests>
</Declude-Base-Configuration>
<!-- In the GUI, these items set the details for the panel that edits
the test in question. One would presume that the GUI would also cache
these values locally and could easily send a quick query message to
verify that the "check-hash" on any given item has not changed... but
I don't want to get too technical here. -->
<!-- The Admin User sets the weight to 12 and hits save. -->
<!-- The Admin User utility sends this -->
<Declude-Base-Configuration>
<Tests>
<Test-ip4r id="SPAMCOP">
<Update/>
<Fail>12</Fail>
</Test-ip4r>
</Tests>
</Declude-Base-Configuration>
<!-- And the config utility sends back this -->
<Declude-Base-Configuration>
<Tests>
<Test-ip4r id="SPAMCOP">
<Update-Result>
Success! Fail weight changed from 10 to 12.
</Update-Result>
</Test-ip4r>
</Tests>
</Declude-Base-Configuration>
_______________________
I know this example shows an administrative task and the thread is
about an end-user GUI, however I wanted to show a proof of concept
using something everyone would recognize - and without clouding it
with an apparent recommendation of what the end-user GUI should be.
Suffice to say that whatever features might be made available for an
end user, this mechanism could easily be adapted to that task and the
GUI for managing these tasks could be implemented without using any
protocols that the user does not already have - the ability to send
and receive email.
_______________________
Hope this helps,
_M
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