Site installation of Starview Version 6

StarView can be installed globally on any system. It has been setup so that if starview can detect how it has been installed. The Update feature in StarView  is not available to users in a site instalation.  The program will tell the user that a new version is available and that the administrator should update the program.

To install the program, download the installer and run it as instructed.  Make sure that the StarView.jar file is not world writeable.  If you have one installed, you should also make sure the Update.jar file is not world readable (so users cannot try to update StarView).  Then create a file called site_env.dat in the same directory as the StarView.jar file. This file is what StarView uses to determine how it is installed (its presence tells StarView it is a site installation).

The administrator can setup several things in that StarView needs to know about the system so users do not have to set them up individualy. These are
 

  1. SMTP hostname for sending mail messages from starview.  StarView submits data requests using email.
  2. Path to the netscape startup script (if a wrapper script is used to launch Netscape, otherwise the same as the binary)
  3. Path to the actual netscape binary.
The netscape information is used to communicate with the users netscape browser via the netscape -remote command to load help pages such as this one in a browser.  It should lauch the browser from scratch if it is not running.

An example site_env.dat file would contain:

SMTPHost=poppc.stsci.edu
unix.browser.wrapper=/opt/X11R5/bin/netscape
unix.browser.bin=/opt/X11R5/lib/X11/netscape/v47/netscape
Note also that users can override these values.  If they do so and misconfigure starview, the restore defaults button in evironment will reset the values to the site installation settings.

A majordomo mailserver MajorDomo@stsci.edu low traffic list called starview-updates will keep you informed of upcoming starview upgrades.  Please put the line
 

subscribe starview-update


in the body of your email message. We will only send out messages prior to upcoming releases to warn you of the upcoming update. We highly encourage you to subscribe to this so your users will not have to request an update after finding the program will no longer run.