OVO provides the following points from which applications can be launched:
❏ The Application Desktop is the recommended part of a user’s environment from which to start an application.
❏ The Menu Bar can be extended to contain additional menus, menu items, or submenus.
❏ The Popup Menus are similar to the main menus but are displayed by clicking on a submap symbol.
❏ The Toolbar provides a set of icons that can be used to start frequently used applications.
The OVO Application Desktops can be customized individually for the responsibilities of different OVO users. The nodes on which an
application is to be performed can either be predefined by the OVO administrator when setting up the application, or it can be determined by selecting the desired nodes in the Node Bank. The OVO operator can also modify the default application attributes using theCustomized Startup window.
You can group similar applications together into logical units called Application Groups. This prevents the application desktops from becoming too cluttered.
Integrating External Applications into the OVO GUI
Figure 3-26 OVO Application Bank
Almost any application can be integrated into the Application Desktop.
Applications with an X-window user interface run in an X-window environment, others run in terminal windows.
NOTE To display the NNM GUI through the OVO Java GUI, you must have an
Integrating External Applications into the OVO GUI
Figure 3-27 OVO Multi-level Menus
For each new menu item, there must be a corresponding action or sub-menu. You will need to use application registration files (ARFs) to associate programs with menu selections.
Menus can be enabled or disabled depending on certain selection rules which specify the type and number of nodes that must be selected in a map window before a menu item becomes active. Inactive menus are automatically “grayed out”.
Toolbars provide a quick, intuitive means of invoking actions. OVO provides a default set of toolbars for invoking actions such as panning or selecting the root map. When an application is added to an OVO
environment, it can add icons into existing toolbars, or create window-specific toolbars and icons.
Menu and Toolbar items can be targeted for display on submaps based on the purpose or context of the submap. Submaps can filter which menu and toolbar items are actually visible. When a submap is created it determines its context which is a list of identifiers. For example, a particular submap intended for printer management might have a context ofwantPrinterMenus,NoGeneric. This submap context would limit menu items and toolbar buttons to those that were targeted using thewantPrinterMenus context identifier.
Integrating External Applications into the OVO GUI
There are two main methods by which an application can be integrated into OVO:
❏ If the application is already integrated into the HP OpenView windows, then an application registration file (ARF) exists and the application is referred to as an “OpenView windows application”.
These applications are integrated into OVO either as OV Applications or as OV Services.
❏ OVO provides a powerful mechanism to integrate applications into a user’s Application Desktop. An application integrated this way is referred to as an OVO Application. If an application is to be integrated for the first time, this is the preferred method.
The following table shows basic characteristics of the different application integration types:
Table 3-1 Comparison of Application Integration Types
OVO Application OpenView
• OVO GUI • Application Registration File (ARF)
Integrating External Applications into the OVO GUI
Output method: • Terminal
• Window displayed by OVO.
• X-application
• Terminal
• X-application
a. The IP Map application is an example of an application integrated as an OpenView service.
Table 3-1 Comparison of Application Integration Types (Continued)
OVO Application OpenView
Application OpenView Service
Integrating External Applications into the OVO GUI
Advantages Gained by Integrating OVO Applications
It is recommended to incorporate an application as an OVO Application for the following reasons:
❏ The Application Desktop is the main place for applications that belong to the operators working environment and responsibilities.
❏ Many applications can be easily maintained and accessed by way of icons and application groups in the Application Desktop.
❏ OVO applications can run on remote nodes without the need to specify or transmit passwords over the network, or maintain.rhost files, which is not the case for OV applications. The action agents of the target nodes are informed via RPC and switch locally to the configured user.
❏ All information about the application is contained in the central OVO database and can be downloaded using the administrator’s GUI. It is not necessary to add an ARF file to an integration package
containing the downloaded information, simplifying the process of building integration packages and making it less prone to errors.
❏ All information about an application can be accessed and edited using the OVO GUI. If a new OVO application is configured, the configuration information is immediately checked and the OVO application can be tested by the administrator. In contrast, when configuring OV applications, an ARF file has to be written that may contain syntax- or semantic errors and only takes effect at the next startup of the user interface.
❏ OVO applications allow an OVO user to change the parameters of the application in a controlled way using the customized startup facility.
Integrating External Applications into the OVO GUI