Has anyone tried a Dynamic Banner in Windchill Page to broadcast message to Users?

[amar_karthi]

Hello Everyone,

Has anyone succeeded in implementing a Dynamic banner on top of the Windchill page near the Windchill logo to relay messages to Users like Maintenance details of the system for example?

I know of the static display banner which can be used to display text that is updated with a restart of the Windchill, but I'm looking at some ways where it needs to be dynamic without a restart of Windchill, like display content from a text file stored somewhere

Thanks in advance!

Amar 

[jbailey · Accepted solution]

I have a couple of solutions that take effect without a restart (they typically apply at the next page refresh or login

The first is following PTC's instructions for modifying Banner.txt (We have been using this since 11.2)

https://support.ptc.com/help/wnc/r12.1.1.0/en/index.html#page/Windchill_Help_Center/customization/WCCG_UICust_GenericUICust_SysBannerAlert.html

Additionally, I was able to take this another step further and use the reference here (https://www.w3schools.com/howto/howto_js_alert.asp) in addition to banner.txt to create some custom banners. This did require some additional logic and a new JSP file. The result is a maintenance banner that is seen at login / and page refresh... and a "Terms of Use" banner that covers the page, and is only seen once as long as the person agrees to the terms of use.

[amar_karthi]

Thanks for responding @jbailey 

But i have a question, even with this approach of having a separate jsp & a .txt file to store content, wont it require a Method server restart every time if the content to be displayed is changed in the .txt file?

[jbailey]

Nope, the jsp files are read real-time. do the simple example in the banner.txt.

Note: This step only needs to be done once (to enable the functionality)

Once that enables the banner, modifications to banner.txt are read without restart. The banner is "disabled" by commenting out the banner text you display.

Example: with banner text on: 

<font face="verdana">
<!-- Banner begins here -->
Windchill server will be down 1/1 for maintenance
<!-- Banner ends here -->
</font>

Example with banner text off:

<font face="verdana">
<!-- Banner begins here -->
<!-- Windchill server will be down 1/1 for maintenance -->
<!-- Banner ends here -->
</font>

[amar_karthi]

Thanks @jbailey This helped us achieve what we were actually thinking of. 

Thanks a Ton!!

Amar

[Fadel]

@amar_karthi This  is one of the new Enhancements in 12.1, that we got thank to SAAS transition , now you can configure this from UI ,without any physical access on server :

 

[avillanueva]

I use the banner.txt that @jbailey mentioned too. It does not require a system restart. I have 3 commands in the bin folder to make this easier. One turns it on, one turns banner off and the last one edits the message which just launches me into vi. I typically use it for upcoming system changes, ongoing performance issue alerts or April Fools Day fun.

[Fadel]

@avillanueva this can be done now from UI (12.1), without any RDP access , https://www.ptc.com/en/support/article/CS378733 

There is a video attached above 

[jbailey]

True, however many customers are months (if not a year or more) from moving to Windchill 12.1 or later. 

[Fadel]

I'm from TS Europe, a lot of my customers are planning to upgrade to 12.1 , have no idea how it looks oversea . 

[CraigFinney]

Although I have not done it, and not sure how I would approach 13.x... 

BUT for linux installs, on 12.0 and earlier, I would set up a cron job (to run once every hour) that would run a script to calculate the current time to x, and sed the banner texts, i..e "Windchill will be shut down 2 days, 13 hours".  so sed could be sed -i 's/2 days, 13 hours/2 days, 12 hours/g' banner.txt 

With the dynamic text on 12.1 going forward, I do not need to do server logins.