doctypes and catalog path vs navigating to?

[ptc-953343]

I'm trying to nail down my doctype issues. I'm trying to put all these on
a central server that everyone will use - pretty standard stuff. I'm also
trying to test this from 2 different installations to make sure things are
working. When I think I have it working I then test it on another machine
and it doesn't work.

There seems to be some magic to navigating to a DTD that seems to make
that public id then be found the next time I open that file. There seems
to be some place special where Arbortext is storing this information, I've
looked in my WCF file that was timestamped correctly and I don't see
anything about the DTD or doctypes or catalog path in this file.

I'm getting frustrated, unless I change the Public Identifier to cause it
to be something new, it appears to be working. So I start trying to
troubleshoot the other instance (which happens to be PE) becasue it can't
find the file. I can only verify that its really not finding the file by
changing the public identifier and then reopening on my local machine.

Can anyone shed some light on this?

..dan

[byork]

Dan,



Does the user you are running PE with have access to the central
location?

[AndyEsslinger]

Dan,

I have no experience with (or access to) PE, but doesn't it honor the
APTCATPATH environment variable?

The preference file for Editor has this under <preferences>:

<option name="catalogpath" value="your_catpath;%D"/">

The semicolon has to be a colon for Unix versions.

-Andy
\ / Andy Esslinger LM Aero Tech Order Data
_____-/\-_____ (817) 279-0442 Box 748, Mail Zone 4285
\_\/_/ (817) 777 3047 Ft. Worth, TX 76101-0748

[ptc-953343]

I tried setting this on PE but it didn't work. I tried setting it to what
I had in my local environment and thought was working, so maybe its a path
issue? I'll try playing with that next on my local machine. I was using a
ACL file in the custom/init directory with the following line:

set catalogpath="%D;\\derby2.mpls.udlp.com\doctypes"

This gets read and I can see it in the Preferences dialog and that its
being read, but it doesn't find the catalog. I'll try this with APTCATPATH
and see if that makes a difference.

..dan

> Dan,
>
> I have no experience with (or access to) PE, but doesn't it honor the
> APTCATPATH environment variable?
>
> The preference file for Editor has this under <preferences>:
>
> <option name="catalogpath" value="your_catpath;%D"/">
>
> The semicolon has to be a colon for Unix versions.
>
> -Andy
> \ / Andy Esslinger LM Aero Tech Order Data
> _____-/\-_____ (817) 279-0442 Box 748, Mail Zone 4285
> \_\/_/ (817) 777 3047 Ft. Worth, TX 76101-0748
>
>

[ptc-953343]

This works for my local editor. I tried it in PE and it sets the path
correctly as the dialog box warning shows the directory. I'm thinking
now there is something about PE that limits this - time to call
support 😉 Also I had found a FAQ that said to use APTCUSTOM, I
might have used it wrong.

I still want to understand how the navigate to fixes this path issue
and where it saves the information. I want to toggle this off so I
can test my implementation.

I had all this working when I put the files under the PE directory
structure, I want to get it out of there and on a file server that is
more local.

..dan

[byork]

Dan,

I think you need to setup a named user that starts PE that would have access to the location of your custom doctypes.

You use APTCUSTOM to set the location of your custom directory. You can add that variable to your system variables on the PE box.

I do have a question on why you have to move the location of the custom directory. Can you share the custom folder on PE instead?

I would love to discuss your install if you would like.

Let me know and I'll send you my number.

Brian

[ptc-953343]

At 07:56 PM 11/13/2008, you wrote:
>I do have a question on why you have to move the location of the
>custom directory. Can you share the custom folder on PE instead?

I don't have to move it, but I would prefer that it be outside of the
installation directory and I'd prefer it to be on the same file
system that the rest of our projects and source files are
located. I've not found anything that says I can't do this with PE,
its certainly the way editor is setup to work.

I'm in an interesting situation where the tech pubs group was pretty
well disbanded about a year ago and its now being reconstituted with
a new team. I'm looking at old legacy project and the file systems
that they used to manage these projects. Stuff is all over the place
with multiple copies of stuff and you can't tell where the true
source files are. This includes the DTDs, FOSIs and programs that
were used to build some of the deliverables. I'm trying to setup the
new environment such that if this ever happens again that the files
will be easier to find. At least this is the goal I have set for myself.

..dan


---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Danny Vint

Panoramic Photography

[byork]

Dan,



I see what you are saying. I kind of do the same thing here.



Because I am at a remote site from where the PE server is located I have
a copy of the custom here. I only need to publish to PE.



Anyways I think these should help you out.

[ptc-953343]

I've tracked down part of my problem in terms of configuring. When I
mapped a drive to the location of my doctypes I got both copies of my
editor to find the file correctly. So either this isn't the right syntax
for APTCATPATH or its just not supported: \\derby2\doctypes. I changed
this to l:\doctypes and mapped the appropriate drive letter and that
works.

PE is still not using this information to actually print remotely. PE
interactive is able to open the document using my APTCATPATH, but when I
try to print it fails.

..dan

> Dan,
>
>
>
> I see what you are saying. I kind of do the same thing here.
>
>
>
> Because I am at a remote site from where the PE server is located I have
> a copy of the custom here. I only need to publish to PE.
>
>
>
> Anyways I think these should help you out.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

[byork]

Dan,

How are you setting your APTCUSTOM on PE?

Brian

[ptc-953343]

It looks like maybe this is the right way for PE, but I'm not dealing with
applications, I'm just trying to move my doctypes. I'll give this a try
next. I'm also surprised I need to use a drive letter to make this work.

..dan

> Dan,
>
> How are you setting your APTCUSTOM on PE?
>
> Brian
>
>

[byork]

I think the most important thing is to make sure that the PE service is
being started with a named user that has access to the network location.


Pretty sure that you should be able to use a unc path.

[JasonBuss]

For what it's worth, I'm also having an issue getting a PE server (5.3
M040) up and running.

The confusing part is that I have a dev server already running a PE
install, same version, same OS, same configuration, and everything works
fine.

On this new server (the lease refresh of our current production server),
I installed PE, set up our default printer and our service account in
DCOM config, set my APTCUSTOM variable, and compiled all the document
types at our central server location. Whenever I try a preview, print,
or PDF, it throws the following error:

"A composer (.ccf) file for this operation is not configured on the PE
server."

Any ideas from anyone? I have the DCF file configured with all the
composition options I have on the dev server. I'm stumped. When
everything works, it runs like clockwork.

[byork]

Jason,



Take a look at this. Same error but might not be the problem.

Solution Details - TPI

Solution

133863

Type

TPI

Created Date

09-Aug-2006

Last Updated

02-Nov-2006



Title

A Composer (.ccf) File for this Operation is Not Configured on the PE
Server

Details

Description

When trying to compose a document using the Arbortext Publishing Engine,
the following error occurs:

"A composer (.ccf) file for this operation is not configured on the PE
server"

Resolution

The message

"A composer (.ccf) file for this operation is not configured on the PE
server"

means that you need to edit the DCF file for your doctype.

Open Editor, then open the DCF file for your doctype.

In the <options> element, set

allowComposeStylesheetList=yes

Then, at the bottom of the DCF file, add a <composition> element.

Within the <composition> element, add one or more <compose> elements.

Allowable values for Compose "type" are: ebook, htmlfile, htmlhelp, pda,
print, pdf, web, wml, xsl

The "config" attribute in the Compose element indicates the path to a
custom ccf file, if you have one. If you do not enter a value in the
config field, the default ccf file is used.

Please note that successful composition to HTML Help, Web, etc. requires
that you have appropriate stylesheets for your document.

If you are changing doctype-related files in your PE custom/doctypes
folder, you need to stop and restart the web server to pick up the
changed information.

[ptc-953343]

At 04:15 PM 11/14/2008, Brian York wrote:
>I think the most important thing is to make sure that the PE service is
>being started with a named user that has access to the network location.
>
>
>Pretty sure that you should be able to use a unc path.

Just to update and close this thread, here are some notes on what I found.

1) APTCATPATH and APTCUSTOM support the use of UNC paths. I changed
and reset these values so often trying to test this that I must have
made a typo in the path. NOte that APTCUSTOM is needed by PE, it can
be used by editor. APTCATPATH doesn't appear to matter to PE.
APTCUSTOM seems to be more flexible/useful than APTCATPATH.

2) The key to my PE issues were that my IT person hadn't installed PE
with a named account. When I created a named account on the server it
didn't have permission to access the network. This is the same issue
with the System account that is the default. When I set PE to use my
account to start I was able to see my files out on the network drive.

3) There is yet another place where user configuration information is
written. When you "Navigate to DTD" a default catalog is created for
the user. In this case a new catalog is created in the users local
settings. So for me this is where the file was:
C:\Documents and Settings\vintdr\Local Settings\Temp\.aptcache\doctypes
This catalog file was masking my problems on my local machine where
every thing seemed to work, but would then fail when I went to the PE
server machine and tried to launch another copy of the Editor to test
my settings. NOTE you have to turn on hidden system files to see this
directory.

4) Some useful things I found along the way while trying to
troubleshoot these problems include:

- Use the PE index page Run ACL application to see what environment
variables are set

- Use the PE index page and View Log to see what the server is doing
as it startup. I found errors about not able to find the directories
I was trying to access via both the APTCATPATH and APTCUSTOM

- Within the Editor there is the Help - About Editor - PE
Configuration that will list differences in the Editor and PE
environments and at the end shows the DTDs that have been "installed".

thanks for all the help

..dan


---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Danny Vint

Panoramic Photography