Introduction | The idea of SmartFACT++ is simple. A backend (smartfact) updates some data-files continously which can then be retrieved from a web-server and the data is displayed in your browser. To keep the network traffic low the data is not encapsulated in html, but transmitted as is. A JavaScript, running client side, i.e. on the machine running the browser is then creating the html around it dynamically which is then displayed by the browser. The backend writing the data-files can be basically everything. In case of FACT it is a program called smartfact which subscribes to all dim-services in the dim-network which are needed. Whenever a service is updated, the corresponding files are also updated. The disadvantage is that it is difficult to mix information which is not updated together in a single file and display it on a single page. This, e.g., means that a file which is only updated every two hours (because new information is only available every two hours) cannot reasonably store information which can change every minute, e.g. general warnings. Every page is restricted to reload a single file, to keep network traffic low. A simple solution would be a php which concatenates information before the information is transfered, but this is (not yet?) available. Consequently, all pages which are not updated frequently or are guranteed to be updated frequently will not show fats updateing information as warning. Some pages, e.g., the main page are updated once every seconcd or few seconds rather than updated event-driven by the reception of a new service. These pages will then show informations like the current warning status of the system. The page description is reloaded whenver a page has been clicked to avoid a lot of network traffic at startup. The disadvantage is a little network traffic (in the order of a few hundred bytes) whenever a page is changed. |