September 2005 Edition
Feature Spotlight: Virtual Ticket Recent Additions
Q&A with Technical Support: Workflow Scheduling Stage Reset
Smart Tip of the Month: Virtual Ticket Web Server Hidden Fields
Third Party Software: AppleScript GUI Scripting
Support Bookshelf: .ASP Forums
Editor's Note: I recently attended the Print '05 show in Chicago. It was nice to be able to put faces to the names of the many customers I regularly converse with and meet some new customers, too. It was also a good opportunity to answer some technical questions and learn about the ways people use Job Manager and Virtual Ticket. I hope those who attended enjoyed themselves and learned a lot along the way.
Justin Bierman
Feature Spotlight
Virtual Ticket Recent Additions
Virtual Ticket has had some features recently added to the OS X and Windows versions. In the OS X version, the disk icon now appears in the lower left corner of the search results window for the purpose of exporting data. This functionality was added in package 142, which is now available. The ability to print your find results, which was available in previous versions, is now also available in the file menu of the OS X version. Simply switch your find results into the list mode and choose print from the File menu. Also in the OS X and Windows versions, the ability to display a file collector's contents as a list has been added. This allows users to display a list of the digital resources in a file collector and also sort based on name, id, size and more.
Q&A with Technical Support
How can a stage be reset in the Advanced Workflow Scheduling solution?
Users can make mistakes in any system and knowing the appropriate ways to correct those mistakes can save time and money. In Virtual Ticket's Advanced Workflow Scheduling solution, if a user accidentally starts or finishes an activity, the Jump to Activity popup menu on the Job Schedule form holds the key to resetting the stage. By clicking the Jump to Activity popup and choosing the stage that should be in progress, the schedule will remove the mistakenly enabled Finish checkbox in the current stage. Be sure to try this out yourself in a sample database so that you can perform this task when called upon by a user to fix a mistake.
For more information, visit:
http://www.meta-comm.com/support/knowledge_base/article.asp?id=16209
Smart Tip of the Month
Virtual Ticket Web Server Hidden Fields
Virtual Ticket Web Server has a couple of fields that are only searchable by the Administrator user. These fields include: File Location and Server Name. Recently, several users have asked to give non-administrative users the ability to search on these fields. For example, off-site freelance artists may need to search for images based on the volume name or the name of the folder where the files are located on the server. The file location field would be necessary to complete this search. The example contained in Knowledge Base article 16210 provides a file which can be installed in place of a standard installation file. This file will provide all users with the ability to search based on file location.
For more information, visit:
http://www.meta-comm.com/support/knowledge_base/article.asp?id=16210
Third Party Software
AppleScript GUI Scripting
Mac OS X 10.3 includes support for controlling applications using AppleScript. With some System Event options enabled in OS X, AppleScripts can choose menus, click buttons, enter text, or perform other UI operations. Apple includes setup instructions and script examples.
A full description of the functionality, and how to enable this capability can be found at:
http://www.apple.com/applescript/uiscripting/
Support Bookshelf
.ASP Forums
Earlier in this edition, we discussed how to make File Location and Server Name fields available for searching in Virtual Ticket Web Server. This required the modification of one .ASP (Active Server Pages) file. Virtual Ticket Web Server owners with developer licenses may wish to refer to the following forums for help and inspiration for creating their own .ASP files.
http://www.asp101.com/links/ - Geared towards developers, this site contains over 100 links to different .ASP development pages. If you are looking for ASP help, start here first.
http://forums.aspfree.com/ - This free site has several topics including: web design, database connectivity, IIS administration, and much more.
New MetaCommunications Knowledge Base Articles this month:
16105 - Using SQL Views
http://www.meta-comm.com/support/knowledge_base/article.asp?id=16105
16110 - Batch deleting and printing of document type records
http://www.meta-comm.com/support/knowledge_base/article.asp?id=16110
16209 - Resetting Workflow Scheduling Stages
http://www.meta-comm.com/support/knowledge_base/article.asp?id=16209
16210 - Enabling the File Location and Server Name fields in VT Web Server searches
http://www.meta-comm.com/support/knowledge_base/article.asp?id=16210
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