Can a script be called outside of ArborText Editor or Publishing Engine?

[mastachef]

Greetings.

I am currently researching the various PTC tools (ArborText Editor, Publishing Engine) for API information. What I am looking for is a way to publish a document in the various supported format. In essence, mimick the GUI behaviour but from a script. Based on searching the threads and some of the reference documentation, I have a couple of questions.

- Is the ACL reference shared amongst the tools (PE and Editor)?

- Is it possible to run a script (Java, Perl etc.) OUTSIDE of ArborText Editor (the Programmer's Guide seems to indicate that this is not possible) and publish a document? Or should one access the PE in Windchill to publish a document?

[GarethOakes]

There are many ways to use the publishing functionality.

1. Yes, PE and Editor both include the same Arbortext core with ACL. PE also has a bunch of extra Java stuff running under Apache Tomcat.
2. Options:
   1. You can call Arbortext with command line parameters to run stuff in batch mode.
   2. You can have Arbortext init.acl scripts call your own functionality at startup.
   3. You can write Java extensions that are loaded with the Arbortext JVM.
   4. The more modern approach is to use the PE web services interface to do the publishing. From memory, you can call f=compose for a full publish or f=java or f=acl to execute some code.
3. You can certainly use Windchill to publish, assuming WVS (Windchill Visualization Services) has been setup to integrate with PE.

There is loads of ACL code that ships with the application. This implements a lot of the GUI functionality, so you can reuse those functions in your own code, e.g. to publish. Just do a bit of fossicking through the *.acl files.

[mastachef]

Thank you. I wanted to do a sanity check becasue I thought wach Arbortext product has its own API.

I would like to futher my check based on your responses...

1. You can call Arbortext with command line parameters to run stuff in batch mode.
   • What is "batch mode" and where/how is that enabled from the Windows CLI? Also, what document(s) contains the command line arguments/options and their descriptions?
2. You can have Arbortext init.acl scripts call your own functionality at startup.
   • This seems to indicate that Editor needs to be launched and the custom scripts would be available
3. You can write Java extensions that are loaded with the Arbortext JVM.
   • This would indicate that this is more a plug-in functionality versus something stand alone.
4. The more modern approach is to use the PE web services interface to do the publishing. From memory, you can call f=compose for a full publish or f=java or f=acl to execute some code.
   • This would seem to be the more logical approach and look further into some documentation.

There is a considerable amount I wish to cover with this research and I am learning the tool as we go. There is a picture within the Programmer's Guide that shows Editor and PE can be accessed with a Java application/script. But we want to be able to publish and not have to launch the GUI. If this is not possible and the only way to accomplish this is to use the folder structure to store our scripts, then I would like to demo such functions. 

[mastachef]

This looks promising...

https://community.ptc.com/t5/Arbortext/How-do-I-call-the-Arbortext-Publishing-Engine-from-outside-the/m-p/178427#M12606

Will update with newer questions.

[GarethOakes]

Batch mode (batch processing): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batch_processing

Yes you can publish without using the GUI, no problem at all. You make HTTP or SOAP requests to PE and it will do the necessary. You can pass files "over the wire" or by placing them on a file share accessible to the PE machine and pointing PE to those files. You do need to ensure your doctypes (custom folder) is up to date on the PE machine and registered with PE. The custom folder is what will contain your DTD/Schema and stylesheets.

[mastachef]

Thank you.

I have looked into the WVS portion for publishing an XML to PDF and I see that WVS is used more with/for the Creo View. The documentation indicates that one would need to install WVS and configure WVS to use the PE for publishing. Would this suffice for an XML to PDF conversion?

Also, if WVS leverages PE, what really is the difference between WVS versus PE?

[GarethOakes]

WVS (Windchill Visualization Services) is the connector between the Windchill repository and the Publishing Engine service. It is an integration tool, nothing more.