Some questions concerning terms of use and installation

Hi Henning,

of course it is allowed to use ARIS Express in an educational setting. You could even use it in a commercial project where you earn money.

About the technical questions: ARIS Express is installed in the user's profile starting the installer. So it is not globally installed, but every user will have to install it on his own. The installation files are stored in the user profile. Currently, we don't provide an installation package. So every PC will need an Internet connection during installation and first startup.

Concerning your last question: We can't really prevent if you create one account and use it to register several copies of ARIS Express. But please keep in mind that this account must at least represent a real individual and not some kind of fake user. Please also tell the students where they can get the tool and that it is free of charge so that they can download it themselves on their private machines. It is not allowed to give your ARIS Community account details to someone else, so the students will have to register at ARIS Community if they want to use ARIS Express on their private machines.

It would be great if you could report back on your experience on using ARIS Express in an educational setting. We would be interested what kind of excercises are done with the tool.

I hope this answers your questions. Please report back if something is unclear or there are other open points.

Thank you for the quick reply.

Regarding the terms of use this is exaclty what i needed to hear. So there are no problem there.

Your answers regarding my technical questions on the other hand are rather devastating.

Well, your way of handling the installation is ok, when used on pcs having just one user account. It becomes questionable when there are two or more user on the machine. This would mean (number of user accounts)*(disc space used by aris express). One could say that modern hdds have more than enough space to handle the amount. (I will black out things like profile loading time etc. since here just the hdd speed is critical.) 

 Now let us add reality in organised educational facilities like schools and universities. Utilization of a domain structure, server side saved profiles and centralized distribution of client software. 

So here size and performance do matter. 

Imagine 100 user which want to use aris express. So we got 100*100MB of used space on each client. 10GB of data used when 100MB would totally suffice. Add the fact, that in some cases the hdd of the clients is maybe just 20 or 40GB in size, where half or more is used by the system and other applications, there simply might not be enough space for aris express. Well, for me this is the smaller problem :)

Every profile has to be synchronized with the server. In the worst case more than 100MB have to be transfered. With the increasing number of students doing the nearly at the same time, the network will become very slow hence the student might have to wait a long time until their can use the pc. So every time the user changes the pc the whole profile has to be transfered. When he logs out changes have to be saved on the server. So using the profile to save application data which are not user related in a network scenario is, well, a knock out.

These points make it hard to roll out aris express for a growing number of users. I won't say it is impossible, but it is definitely not too good for usage in a growing multi user environment.

Please consider the following alternative which will render my negative points invalid:

Instead of pumping the whole application into the user profile differentiate between user specific data and application data. The application data is saved where in program files where it belongs, or even better, you stop patronizing the installing user and allow the path to be changed. If this means admin rights are needed for installation, so be it. User specific data goes into the profile. With user specific data i mean information you use to maintain your policy to get the people to join the community when using aris express. A perfectly valid way to do this would be:

The application is installed (for every user on the system). No question for user data at this moment, just installing. When the application is started for the first time, it will ask for acceptance of license and valid user credentials. The verification information is then stored in the profile of the user (there we have actually something which is user specific). If the application is started again, it will check for this verification information and start normally. 

You still will get every user to join, because he has to enter valid credentials when he first starts the application. You can still say that the application can be used off-line after registration. Updates can be handled much more efficient. 

Please do not take this the wrong way. It is neither meant to sound rude nor arrogant. These are just my personal thoughts on this matter.

If there are any other options for me to solve the mentioned points I'd very much like to hear them.

Thanks for your time.

Hi Henning,

these are indeed important considerations. The problem is that ARIS Express was not designed to be centrally deployed. Therefore, it does not support this use case very well (or maybe not at all). ARIS Express was designed to be as easy to install as possible for a single user. Therefore, it is important that the user doesn't need admin rights.

Anyway, we will check for a future version if we can find a way to handle that in another way to support both use cases: central deployment and single user installation.

Hi Sebastian,

Thank you very much, I appreciate that. 

Have a nice weekend :)

Morning Sebastian,

I almost forgot to keep you posted about the latest developments concerning the use of aris express.

The keep it short: I found a way to enable our users to work with aris even in a domain environment.

Well, actually it was quite simple. 

Luckily aris express does indeed differentiate between program data and user specific data in some way. The user data is stored in the user profile (3-4MB). Thumbs up here :)

The program data is too, but in the end Java is to blame for that because it saves its cache in the user profile too. So everything you need to do is change the Java cache path to a folder on the local hard disc. This keeps all the program data on the local hard disc and away from the somewhat fragile user profile.

The biggest disadvantage to this is the fact, that every user now uses the same Java cache folder which makes it less user specific. Less privacy for the Java cache data but no problems till today.

Using this strategy aris express can be installed locally by the user. The first user has to verify himself with his community account and then can use the program. The next user will have a shorter installation duration since the data is already there. He also has to verify himself and then can use aris. Same applies to every other user. The program seems to work fine and your way of pulling the users into the community stays intact.

WinXP:

Just open the control panel and the Java settings. On the "general" tab look for "temporary internet files" and click settings. There you will find the path where Java caches files. Change the location to a folder outside the user profile, save and you are done.

Vista/7:

It might come the time when you realize, that changing the cache location is not possible in the settings since the change button is disabled. In this case you have to edit the config file manually to change the cache location. 

The config file is located in: 

"C:\Users\<UserName>\AppData\LocalLow\Sun\Java\Deployment"

and is calles "deployment.properties".

Just add the following line in the first section:

"deployment.user.cachedir=C\:\\Temp"

This will set the cache location to c:\Temp.

Save the file and reopen the Java setting in the control panel. The cache path has now changed accordingly.

Notice: Every user on the system has to change this setting for himself since Java uses user specific settings. 

Well, i hope this workaround is useful for others facing the same problem using aris express.

Feedback is welcomed. 

Hi,

thank you very much for your feedback.

Yes, we have seen that e.g. Vista is much more restrictive. Actually, I do not understand why one should not change the folder where the applications will be downloaded.

From my side, this is just considered as a bug in the JRE, which I am going to communicate with Sun.

Bye,

Frank

Thanks Henning for sharing this with us. I think this will be very useful for others also trying to deploy ARIS Express in a managed environment!

Hello everyone,

I got a real test situation for my ArisExpress  workaround and it worked, well for the most part :)

That's why i want to add an additional step for the installation which will fix the "bug" my professor pointed out to me yesterday:

Situation:

When using ArisExpress and setting links between different files you run into the fact, that the .adf file extension is not registered in the system. This will result in an error message when trying to use the link set in a project.

Workaround:

Since there is no real executable in ArisExpress a simple registration of the extension with the program won't work. After another test i found java registering the extension itself in the registry. And this is the point where the admin has to grab on to fix this problem.

I found java tempering with the registry and made an export of the things i thought i need:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes]

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\.adf]

@="classadf1"

"Content type"="x-application/adf"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\classadf1]

@="ARIS Document File"

"Generated By"="Generated By Java-Association"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\classadf1\DefaultIcon]

@="C:\\JavaCache\\6.0\\33\\671ecf21-262243af"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\classadf1\shell]

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\classadf1\shell\open]

@=""

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\classadf1\shell\open\command]

@="\"C:\\Programme\\Java\\jre6\\bin\\javaws.exe\" \"-open\" \"%1\" \"C:\\JavaCache\\6.0\\45\\72b5016d-5fe7229b\""

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\classadf1\shell\print]

@=""

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\classadf1\shell\print\command]

 @="\"C:\\Programme\\Java\\jre6\\bin\\javaws.exe\" \"-print\" \"%1\" \"C:\\JavaCache\\6.0\\45\\72b5016d-5fe7229b\""

Simply importing these settings won't work for you since Java will not name the important file consistantly. To make this work you need to edit shell/open/command and shell/print/command.

Concentrate on this part in both commands:

\"C:\\JavaCache\\6.0\\45\\72b5016d-5fe7229b\""

Go into the directory where you put your ArisExpress installation which shall be used. Find the Folder 45 and browse the files. You will not fine the exact filename posted here but there will be one starting with 72b5016d. Change the filename in this settings with the one matching your installation.

Example:

You got a 72b5016d-32c7149a file in your installation directory. So it will be like this:

\"C:\\JavaCache\\6.0\\45\\72b5016d-5fe7229b\"" will become

\"C:\\JavaCache\\6.0\\45\\72b5016d-32c7149a\""

Do the same with the print command and you are done with editing.

Now log in as a user which has not installed ArisExpress but shall use the installation. Import the settings into the registry. Since its user specific even a standard user should be able to do this. And this is it. Now the links in ArisExpress which open other documents should work just fine. At least they do here :)

With this i believe ArisExpress to be fully working until a user points out another error which can be traced to this way of installing/using the program. 

I will then add a solution here... IF i find one ;)

And again feedback is welcomed.

So long...

Hi Henning,

normally, the ADF file extension is linked to Express. This is so far entered in the JNLP and it works, at least at every machine I tried it. But this is only the case if you "integrated" Express into your desktop (I hate this term, but we can not change it, it's within the JRE).

If you do not have an icon on your desktop or not file type association, you can do the following:

1. open system panel
2. go to "Java"
3. on the first page of the appearing dialog, go to "show/Anzeigen" in the section "temporary internet files"
4. than, you can see "ARIS Express 1.0" in the application cache viewer
5. execute the context (right click) menu onto "ARIS Express 1.0"
6. If you do not have the "desktop integration" answered, you can find a menu entry "install assignment/Verknüpfung installieren"

Does that help?

Bye,

Frank

Hi Frank,

This possibility in the Java settings  is news to me.

Many thanks for pointing this out to me.

Ok. I just tried using this.

It really installed a new Link on my desktop which will save me one step. But it did not register the adf extension in the system. At least i did not found them in the location the normal install would put them.

Opening a sample adf file didn't work either. I tried logging out and logging in again. The same.

Using this will round one step in my installation order obsolete, for which i am grateful, but it does not solve the missing file extension link problem. At least not for the system i tried it on.

Bye,

Henning

Hi,

as a workaround: normally reinstalling solves the problem.

1.) open the Java panel again

2.) first page: settings/Einstellungen

3.) delete/Dateien löschen... -> make sure both flags are set

4.) to be sure: navigate to the path given in the dialog too with Explorer, delete it

5.) reinstall Express by the download link in this community or just here: download.ariscommunity.com/express.jnlp

Make sure, that your confirm the question about integrating the software into the desktop.

Bye,

Frank