How do I distribute my system on CD?

Most systems can be distributed on a CD. The system must not require calling a server directly (e.g. database calls), or the database may be distributed on the CD. In addition, you must have a license that allows you to distribute copies of the ExsysCorvid.jar file with your application. Contact sales@exsys.com for details on the type of license you will need.

When building the CD, the .jar, .cvR, and .cvRu files should NOT be in the root folder of the CD. IE 5.0's Security Manager will not allow the applet to access the files in a root folder. You can put an .html file in the root folder that is an introduction page with no expert system applet. This can be an index page. This introduction page should have a link that goes to an .html file in a subfolder that has the HTML page that runs the expert system applet.

CD's use a slightly different file system structure than Windows (or any other operating system). It restricts the letters used in file names, for example some punctuation characters are not allowed. It has a shorter file name length limit. The first character of the file name cannot be a period.

Since you do not know what operating system the user will be running on, restrict the characters used in file names and folder names to only letters, digits, underscores (_), and a single period used only in file names (not folder names) that separates the extension. The file name or folder name should not be more than 50 characters and the extension, if any, should not be more than 10. Do not use spaces in the file names or folder names.

Make sure the case of all file names and folders match. Some operating systems are case sensitive. "Case" meaning capital letters vs. lower case letters.

Use only ".html" for your Web page extensions; not ".htm" nor ".HTML", otherwise the operating system may not know to open the file in a browser.

If you are running as an applet in an .html file, you will not be able to call CGI, ASP, JSP, and Servlet programs. This includes Corvid's report commands.

If you are running your system as a Java application, the user must have Java installed on their computer. Java v1.2 or higher is recommended. If Java is not in the path, the user will have to specify the path. Java would need to be installed to run Corvid. Java can be downloaded from java.sun.com or an install file could be included with your system on the CD. Versions of any non-Java operating system specific programs that are required by your system would need to be provided for the operating systems you plan to support.