I'm having a similar problem and I can't figure out why. We have two environments, the first being Dev, where everything works. We have several application folders, one of which is a common one that holds a CSS stylesheet and several images. Procedures in the other application folders reference this stylesheet and images using the form:

 /approot/<common-folder>/style.css 

Again, this was working fine before we started copying things to the non-dev environment, and after much tweaking (does anyone have a good way of migrating MRE users, views, domains, and app path stuff in one smooth go?), the reports run, but are not accessing things in the common app folder. I have triple-checked that the files are actually there and readable, but as near as I can tell, the application can't tell that they're there.

Example:
the common folder is called "icr-common." Within the virtual Other folder is "styles.css."
In our dev environment, I can access this with the URL

 http://environment:port/approot/icr-common/styles.css 

and it asks if I want to open or save the file.
However, if point to the other environment, the file cannot be found, but I'm looking right at it in Dev Studio!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: J.Hines,

In Dev Studio, are you looking at the icr-common folder in the Web Applications area? Are you in a multi-tier environment, with different reporting server and web server?

No, the icr-common folder is one of our application folders.

By way of example, I have a background image in there, and in one of our MRE domains I have an HTML form that uses a CSS file to declare

 background-image: url(/approot/icr-common/green_swoop.jpg); 

And although this worked in the other environment, and I have the same image file in the same app folder in the new, the image is not found.

As far as I know we're not in a multi-tier environment.

quote:

background-image: url(/approot/icr-common/green_swoop.jpg);

is web-based styling, therefore the files should be in the web applications folder. In a single-tier environment, very often, the WebFOCUS application folder is also the web application folder (but it doesn't have to be). For my local Dev Studio installation, to simulate a multi-tier environment, I have two sets of folders - one for WF and one for web. They're located in C:\ibi\apps and C:\ibi\apps_web. Then in the WF Client Admin Console, I specify the approot to be C:\ibi\apps_web.

On the non-dev environment WF Client Admin Console (http://server:8080/ibi_apps/console/webfocusconsole.jsp), look at Configuration > Application Settings > Application Paths. It should be pointing to where you expect it to...

I thought the Web Applications folder might be the thing too, but the image files are already in there.

What I don't know (being fairly new to WF) is what the Web Applications folder is for. I have one folder in there for baseapp, and one named icr, and the icr one has the image files, but it also has just whatever is in the ICR project folder under "Projects on DEV" which I don't use as I don't understand the concept of a project in conjunction with the environment in Dev Studio.

I know that probably sounds like a mess, but even for reading a ton of the manuals, I'm not sure what Projects and the Web Applications areas are for.

Jess,

It's actually quite simple, and I've already alluded to what the Web Applications area is for.

In a single-tier environment (one server), very often, the WebFOCUS application folder area e.g. baseapp) is also the web application folder area. So, everything is mingled together - fex, htm, mas, acx, css, js, html.

"approot" refers to the web application area, and is defined in the WF Client Admin console and is also an "application" in Tomcat or whatever web server you're running - this is so that Tomcat can find the images, stylesheets, javascript files that are referred to in the html code, like "/approot/icr-common/green_swoop.jpg".

If your dev and non-dev environments are similar, in that they each run on a single server, my guess is that there is a configuration issue - in either the WF Client Admin console or the Tomcat Manager. See your admin about this.

I never use the Projects area. In Dev Studio Options, you can turn this off so you won't see it in the Explorer window.

Thanks Francis.

So does that mean that if I have say HTML forms in my MRE domains that I MUST have something in the Web Applications folder? That hasn't seemed to be the case thus far, and if I have all my images, fex's, etc in my application folders on EDASERVE, do I even need to use the Web Applications folder?

I also have a ticket open on this, because I too suspect it's some configuration issue or some problem with how we migrated since we didn't get any direction on how to do that internally. The case number is 90582523.

The HTML forms developed using Dev Studio that are in the MRE domains will be in the Managed Reporting area of Dev Studio. If you used HTML Composer GUI to add CSS, JS or image files to an HTML form, they get copied to the "Other" folder in the domain you're working in. If the CSS file refers to an image, like that background image example, it is NOT referring to the Other folder in MRE (in fact there's no way to do this from within a css file) - it refers to an image file in the app folder, which also just happens to be the web applications folder (in a single-tier environment with default installation). You can easily verify this: look at the file count in both the EDASERVE app folder and the Web Applications app folder - they should be the same.

First, I just want to say thanks for the help Francis; I've seen you all over these threads (including some of my other ones).

Maybe our environments are different (or multi-tier) then, because I'm with you right up to "which also just happens to be the web applications folder" because within the Web Applications, I can create applications, just as in the EDASERVE tree, and there doesn't seem to be any connection between that and the app folders.

So to reiterate, I have an HTML form in one of my MRE domains. It uses a CSS file, that references an image in my application path folder. There's no Web Application folder of the same name, nor do images get copied to the baseapp folder in Web Applications.

Well, well.... finally someone else, who like me is experiencing grief after migrating to 7703, or in my case 7704 server with 7703 client and 7703 Dev Studio.

After days on end with 4 or 5 tech syupport personnel who looked over our entire system the only recommendadion was to roll back to 7702.

We are running the 7704 server and 7703 client on 64-bit Linux and Dev Studio on Win 7.

Now 7702 was working fine, except that it did not have EXL07 output - which we desperately needed - because it's the only version that is truly binary and compatible with OpenOffice / Lotus Symphony spreadsheets.

Our problems - including the one about not finding the images files - were/are many but have partly been solved by applying Hotfix 7 to Dev Studio and using some creative workarounds.

I have not yet installed the client Hotfix 7 on the server, so I'm unable to tell you yet if it will solve the issues at that end, but here is how I'm operating in a semi-crippled way right now.

Issues:

1) Cannot effectively creat HTML pages in the server environment. Creating a frame immediately gives an error with some HTML tags immediately visible in the frame. Other elements seem to create OK.

2) Cannot run any given HTML form directly from Dev Studio in the server environment - gives HTML form cannot be found message. This is the issue that the tech support gurus seemed to want to concentrate on - to no avail. I have to use a browser and access the form externally from Dev Studio using a fully-qualified URL.

3) Background images for buttons etc. mostly do not show up when in the Style tool. This is the case even though we are in a single-tier environment and the images are in the same directory as the HTML page being edited. When the images do appear in the Style tool they promptly disappear when Save is clicked.

4) When linking from one HTML page to another it is not possible to use the drop-down to select HTML and then browse for the link-to page.

Since I did all of the previous 7702 development on the server it means all the old pages are useless and I've had to start again from scratch with much grumbling from the boss that the reports aren't on the menu - this has been going on for over a year now ...

Workarounds:

I do all my development in the PC environment, not on the server.

Initally I had to live without my images for Run buttons etc. But since Hotfix 7 (which I installed just last week on the PC) I have been able to add them if I develop on the PC and then use the Deploy tool to move the HTML page to the server. I previously installed copies of the images in both places.

(Interestingly I could generally get the built-in images for PDF and Excel to show up in a radio-button control. But even when I placed copies of my own .png files in the same directories where I found those images they were not available).

I also seem to be able to create frames in Dev Studio on the PC that get copied properly to the production environment.

Francis doesn't use Projects (and therefore the Deploy tool) and neither did I up till now. In theory Deploy is just a copy in a single-tier environment. But somehow it is working for me so I'm not messing with it.

When I need to link from one HTML page to another instead of selecting HTML in the dropdown I have to select URL and then in the filename box I type:

/approot/directoryname/filename.htm

By specifying in this way I can move around successfully.

I'm hoping (praying) that applying HF7 to the client will make all these issues go away, because it certainly helped at the local Dev Studio end.

It all sounds initially like a simple paths issue, but after uploading configuration file after configuration file to Tech Support they don't see anything wrong. I'd love to get back to a situation where most things simply work but that's pie-in-the-sky at this point.

I should point out that the 7704 server seems to be working fine, as does ReportCaster.

Well that sounds scary, but in my case, it's not even to do with migrating versions of WebFOCUS, this is just moving from one server to another, both having the same version (7.7.0.3) as we have a dev server, then a user test server, and a prod server, and it's just going from dev to user test. I'm even logged into the UNIX server and can see my files right where there's supposed to be on the test server.

I just now figured out that if I create a project for my common folder, copy everything in the same common app folder from my dev environment, then deploy that to my User Test environment, all the references work!

However, I don't understand why, because now the CSS file that I'm referencing via /approot/icr-common (which is in the application folder icr-common in Dev) works even though the CSS file is actually in Web Applications/icr-common.

I've worked with v7.7.03 for over a year and have not had issues like these at all. George, maybe the issues are with v7.7.03 on 64-bit Linux.

Jess, I never use Projects, don't really know how to use them in an MRE world.

I'm sorry you're experiencing so many problems.Even though it might be slow progress, the only thing you can do is open Tech Support cases...

Best of luck.

When we moved from a windows server to a linux server we had to run some jobs to "convert" some files to mmake them usable on Linux. sorry to be vague on details and i am not sure if this relates to images but perhaps this has somethingto do with the problem.

All,

I made this work at our site by adding this line to the fex:

-MRNOEDIT -INCLUDE pics/problue.sty

problue.sty being a stylesheet in the web app/folder named pics.

--wg