NPC and the footer.text Property

Often when displaying report data, it is handy to have a little explanation about the data being presented.  In the case of NPC, this is accomplished by means of the footer.text property.  As it turns out, this footer.text is HTML based and can use some fairly advanced HTML features.

I say this can be done in NPC, but it can't; at least unless you jailbreak NPC.  At this point, CA has decided that CAPC will replace NPC.  Currently, there's no upgrade path and many of the features that some customers rely upon haven't been rebuilt into CAPC (remember CAPC is a rebuild from the ground up, so just because it was in NPC doesn't mean it will be in CAPC). I've already posted on the community about some of the features that I require before I will upgrade myself or anyone else to CAPC (browser view for example).

However, since NPC now has one foot in the grave (CA is evangelizing IM2.0 which requires CAPC more than Jim Jones' kool-aid), I see no reason why anyone wouldn't want to start experimenting with some of the hidden features in NPC.  So, if you haven't jailbroken NPC yet, you might consider it.  However, if you don't have NV as a data source, don't worry about it.  The NV view wizard is all you really get.  While that opens tons of doors to customization you never thought possible, it doesn't do anything for non-NV customers.  If you're interested, email me.  Once CA puts the last nail in NPC's coffin, I'll publish the steps here.  Until then, I need deniability.

So, on to the topic of this post.  When using the view wizard to create/edit NV views in NV (or NPC if you've jailbroken it) it turns out you can put some fairly complex html in the footer field.  Obviously, you can use {Resolution} and {Samples} in there to pull the current resolution and data point count (whether it's sampled data or not).  However just today I tried and was able to put a fully formed html table in the footer. I then tried to take it a step further and embed a YouTube video.  That worked fine as well.

In case you don't see it, this can be useful when trying to explain to new users what certain views mean.  For example, I could put together a complete page with live data and YouTube videos or text explaining what each one means and how to use it.  For example, I could put some text or an image in the footer that could expand a DIV section containing a YouTube video explaining how to interpret the data.  The nice part about this is that the footer is tied to the view.  Previously, I would put a separate browser view embedding the help information.  This is good for situations where you want to put the data on the left and explanation on the right.  However, putting the explanation in the footer ensures that the explanation stays with the data even through moves and copies.

So in order to put a hidden YouTube video in the footer of a view:

1. First check to make sure the view supports a footer (most do, this is just a sanity check).
2. Install HeidiSQL and connect to your NPC server.
3. Go to the control_properties table and filter it to only show your view.  Get the controlid from the NPC web gui by looking at the status bar when you open the view menu and mouseover the edit option.  Then set a filter for controlid=X, pageid in (0, Y), and propertiesid in (0, Z).
4. Find the footer.text property.  
5. Edit the propertyvalue column and insert your html.  
6. Save the record and you're good to go.

If you change the footer.text where pageid=0, propertiesid=0, and userid=0, you are modifying the default definition of the view and any existing views tied to the default settings and any new views will have this modified setting.

Here's the code you would insert if you wanted to embed my SA video.  You'll need to take out the carriage returns to make it one long line:

<script language="javascript"> function toggle(showHideDiv, helpimg){ var ele=document.getElementById(showHideDiv); var img=document.getElementById(helpimg); if(ele.style.display=="block"){ ele.style.display="none"; img.src='../npc/images/expand.gif' }else{ ele.style.display="block"; img.src='../npc/images/contract.gif' } }</script> <a href="javascript:toggle('hiddendiv','helpicon');"><img border="0" id="helpicon" src="../npc/images/expand.gif" /> Show help</a> <div id="hiddendiv" style="display: none;"> <iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/9vPZRViW43c" width="420"></iframe></div>

Windows 8 Highlights

I've been watching (mostly passively) the development and announcements around Windows 8.  Microsoft's new flagship desktop operating system will be unleashed sometime later this month.  I say unleashed, but I really should say released again since there was a developer's preview version of the operating system, a consumer preview version, and a release preview version that were released previously.  In my case, the multiple previews actually cemented a prejudice I have against MS' radical new ideas in their first iteration.  I actually downloaded and installed the developer preview and it told me everything I needed to know about Windows 8: it's the next Windows ME, or Windows Vista and I won't be rushing to it any time soon; Microsoft has tried to do something radically different, but they never get it right on the first try.  It's always the iteration afterward that hits pay-dirt (right after ME was XP and right after Vista was 7).
Either way, Michael Mace put together a great introductory video explaining what changes with this version of the operating system.  Here it is.

NQSync

Here's another one of my tools.  I found myself constantly needing to make sure the supportcig.exe is up to date on all my servers.  I also spend a lot of time tweaking my nqbackup.bat script, and every time there's a change, I need to copy it out to all my servers.  I also ended up trying to organize the mess that is the huge quantity of supportcig files distributed across all my servers.  So, of course, I scripted it.



NQSync.bat does several things I'm proud of.  First of all, it finds two unused drive letters on the system on which it's being run, starting with Z.  It does this so that the script can temporarily map network drives out to all the target systems and to the master system.  I should explain: the script can be run from anywhere as long as the credentials used to run the script have admin rights to all the servers.  First it maps a drive to the master server's D: drive.  Then it maps another network drive out to each of the target servers in turn (this is why we need two unused drive letters).  Then, depending on the options will do three actions:

• Update the supportCIG.exe file on the remote server - the script will copy the supportCIG.exe file from the master's D:\SupportCIG\ directory to the target server(s) D:\SupportCIG\ directory.
  To enable this option, include the switch /u anywhere on the line when calling the script.
• Gather the supportCIG output files onto the master server - the script will copy any zip files found in D:\SupportCIG\ to the master server into the D:\SupportCIG\[Server]\ directory, where [Server] is the server's name or IP address.
  To enable this option, include the switch /g anywhere on the line when calling the script.
• Synchronize tools to the remote server - the script will the entire contents of the D:\DBTools3 and D:\SupportTools6 directories out to the remote server in the same location.  This is how I get a copy of my updated nqbackup.bat file out to all the servers.
  To enable this option, include the witch /s anywhere on the line when calling the script.

The script itself will need to be modified to identify the master server.  Just go to line 2 and put the name or IP address of the master server.  Also, you'll need to provide a text file containing the name or IP address of each target server (one per line).  Obviously, it doesn't need to contain the master server's IP address.  Make the path to this text file one of the arguments.  For example:

nqsync.bat /u /g D:\lists\allservers.txt

This would update the CIG and gather all the outputs for all the servers in the text file.  Obviously, if the text file is in the same directory as nqsync.bat, you can exclude the full path and just put the name of the file.

NQSync.bat uses some fun code to find the first and second available drive letters.  I've tested this by using this script.  It identifies which drive letters are in use and which are available.