Stop using Creo's "Server Name" as Toolkit's "Server_Alias"

[JamesAvis]

Currently, when you register a Windchill server in Creo, it asks you for a Name and Location.  The name is then used by Toolkit applications as server_alias, where server_alias MUST fit as shown here: 

wtws://<server_alias>/<workspace_name>/<object_server_name>

If that is what the server_alias MUST be, why does it need to manually entered?  It should be automatically harvested from the server Location.  The server Name, then, can be whatever the user wants it to be in their server manager.  In face, Name is an outdated field, since it used to control the display in the Folder Navigator, but has since been replaced by "Windchill Cabinets".  The only place it is visible is in the Server Manager, and it would be nice to allow it to be descriptive without breaking toolkit applications.

Reasons why:

1. Users think Name means "give it a name", so they do.
2. Users don't think Name means "the root path to your server"
3. If you have multiple servers sharing the same root path, the server_alias...s are all the same, so they all look the same in the server manager!

[bmüller]

It would be an nice option if there is an environment/config.pro option to deploy server name and path. So user don't even have to worry how to name the server.

br Bernhard

[JamesAvis]

You could use a mapkey for that.  It's what I do, and it nearly eliminated help desk calls due to typos.

[JamesAvis]

I see a few down votes, but I don't see any comments as to why.  What's wrong with preventing a user entered alias when the system requires it to be a certain value?

[JamesAvis]

All search paths in the config.pro MUST use the server Name in place of the root URL or they will fail.  If a user names their server, they can't use these settings without changing them.  You can write your programs to use the URL and not the Name, so this whole idea is to stop relying on the Name for these things!

[JamesAvis]

 I want to emphasize that the way it should be done is to allow the user to name the server, but match the URL to the search paths which should be able to use either the URL or the Alias.  So wtpub://MyServer/Libraries/etc. should get the same result as wtpub://my.server.com/Libraries/etc, as long as the URL for MyServer points to my.server.com.