This document explains how to install yFiles AJAX. yFiles AJAX is a product of yWorks GmbH, creator of the outstanding Java™ graph visualization framework yFiles and other fine products.

yFiles AJAX Installation

Contents

License

Please read the yFiles AJAX license.

Bundled Products

This product contains software developed by the dojo foundation (http://dojotoolkit.org/foundation) distributed under the terms of the Academic Free License v2.1.

This product contains software developed by the Apache Software Foundation (http://www.apache.org/) distributed under the terms of the Apache License, Version 2.0.

This product contains Nuvola icons developed by David Vignoni (http://icon-king.com/) distributed under the terms of the GNU LESSER GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version 2.1.

This product contains software developed by Jason Hunter and Brett McLaughlin (http://www.jdom.org/) distributed under the terms of this license.

Contents of the Binary Distribution

The binary distribution contains the following top level directories.

• The directory resources contains styles for displaying this web page.
• The directory third_party_licenses contains the licenses for the bundled products.
• The directory webapp contains the archive yfiles-ajax.war for the yFiles AJAX web application.

The binary distribution contains the following top level files.

• The build.xml file is an Ant script which helps installing yFiles AJAX. However, the installation of yFiles AJAX is also possible, if Ant is not installed. The build.xml file also contains a target for extracting the tutorial sources from the web application archive and a target for unpacking the whole contents of the web application archive. Note that the tutorials and demo web applications do not work without a running server component.
• Installation.html is this file.
• YFILES_AJAX_EULA.html contains the license terms for using yFiles AJAX.

Prerequisites for the Installation

Client

• The client part of yFiles AJAX runs inside a common web browser.
  • Firefox 1.5+
  • Internet Explorer 6+
  JavaScript and Cookies need to be enabled.
• The client needs to have access to the server over a network.
• There are no requirements on the operating system except for those given by the used browser.

Server

• A Java Runtime Environment needs to be installed. The servlets are compiled using Java 1.4.2.
• The yFiles AJAX client works in conjunction with a server component using standard servlet technology. Therefore, a servlet container needs to be installed on the server, e.g., Tomcat 5.5.
• The server uses the yFiles for Java library version 2.5 or newer. In particular you need the y.jar file. yFiles AJAX also depends on other Jar files, but they are integrated in the distributed web application.
• A yFiles AJAX license file is needed. The evaluation version of yFiles AJAX contains a license file, which is valid for an arbitrary host, but only for a limited period of time. For a full version of yFiles AJAX the license file is distributed separately, since the license information highly depends on the individual customer.
• Ant is not strictly necessary, but it helps for some tasks.

Installation

Client

There is no need to install anything on the client side, if a supported browser is already there. If this is not the case, current browsers are typically easy to get and to install. You can for example get Firefox from here. You can use the browser out-of-the-box. There is no need for additional plugins. Javascript and Cookies need to be enabled in the browser.

Server

• There are two possibilities for integrating your y.jar and yfiles-ajax-license.xml (in case of a full version) files with the server side of yFiles AJAX. You can either use a supplied Ant script or you can put the files directly into the directories of the deployed web application, if your servlet container supports that (e.g., Tomcat does support this approach). The following describes the details of these two approaches. Select the approach that is most suitable for you, do not use both methods.

  1. EITHER inject your y.jar file and your yfiles-ajax-license.xml file (in case of a full version) into the bundled WAR file in the webapp subdirectory before deploying the web application. You need to have Ant installed for this variant.
     • Copy your y.jar and yfiles-ajax-license.xml (in case of a full version) files into the directory extracted from the downloaded yfiles-ajax-*.zip file (where the build.xml file is located).
     • At the command line in this directory issue the following command.

       ant
       

     • After successfully injecting the Jar and the license file deploy the web application to your servlet container. In Tomcat this can be done using the Tomcat manager application.
  2. OR add your y.jar and yfiles-ajax-license.xml (in case of a full version) files to the deployed web application. This may not be possible for every servlet container.
     • Deploy the bundled web application first.
     • Copy your y.jar file to the WEB-INF/lib directory in the context root directory of the deployed web application. If you use Tomcat this directory should be similar to .../Tomcat 5.5/webapps/yfiles-ajax/WEB-INF/lib.
     • Copy your yfiles-ajax-license.xml file to the WEB-INF directory in the context root directory of the deployed web application.
     • After the files are placed in the right directories, the web application needs to be reloaded or restarted.
• After you installed the yFiles AJAX web application, you should be able to access its home page using the address that corresponds to the directory you installed the application in. If you use Tomcat, the URL will look similar to this:

  http://localhost:8080/yfiles-ajax/

• The demo applications can be launched from the home page of the yFiles web application or directly using URLs

  http://[webserver-content-root]:[port]/[webapp-context-root]/yfiles-ajax/Examples/Graph_Viewer.html

  http://[webserver-content-root]:[port]/[webapp-context-root]/yfiles-ajax/Examples/Collapsible_Tree.html

  http://[webserver-content-root]:[port]/[webapp-context-root]/yfiles-ajax/Examples/Graph_Editor.html

• You can enable the additional download formats PDF, SWF, EMF and EPS in the LoaderServlet, if you have yExport available. A valid evaluation version also works. Just deploy the two jar files vectorgraphics.jar and yexport.jar from the lib directory of the yExport distribution to the WEB-INF/lib directory of your web application.

Feedback

We appreciate your feedback. Please send your remarks, questions or bug reports to yfilesajax@yworks.com.