TIBCO Rendezvous Data Source

TIBCO Rendezvous® is a high-performance proprietary publish/subscribe, request/reply, messaging middleware transport. RTView for TIBCO Rendezvous® subscribes to real-time messages and extracts the content for use in dashboards, reports and alerts. To improve application monitoring, RTView can provide metrics about a TIBCO Rendezvous® implementation. A set of standard TIBCO Rendezvous® dashboards is provided that can be used as-is or modified for advanced monitoring and control.

This section includes:

§        “TIBCO Rendezvous System Requirements and Setup” on page 763

§        “Attach to TIBCO Rendezvous Data” on page 764

§        “Define TIBCO Rendezvous Command” on page 773

§        “TIBCO Rendezvous Data Source Substitutions” on page 775

§        “Application Options - TIBCO Rendezvous” on page 776

§        “RTView Deployment - TIBCO Rendezvous” on page 781

§        “TIBCO Rendezvous Demos” on page 783

§        “Quick Start Tutorial: TIBCO Rendezvous” on page 785

§        “TIBCO Rendezvous Data Simulator” on page 789

§        “TIBCO Rendezvous Data Source Command Line Options” on page 792

TIBCO Rendezvous System Requirements and Setup

System Requirements

In addition to basic “System Requirements”, the TIBCO Rendezvous data source requires TIBCO Rendezvous. See the README_sysreq.txt file in your installation’s home directory for the current version(s) supported

You may need to modify your Java security setting to include the following permission:

permission java.util.PropertyPermission "sun.arch.data.model", "read, write";

By default, all RTView applications connect to TIBCO Rendezvous using the TIBCO Rendezvous Daemon (rvd) transport.

Rich Client Browser Deployment for Direct Data Connection

The Display Viewer Applet cannot communicate with TIBCO Rendezvous using rvd. Due to TIBCO Rendezvous requirements, the Display Viewer Applet must use the TIBCO Rendezvous Agent Process (rva) transport to connect to TIBCO Rendezvous data. See “Rich Client Browser with Direct Data Connection” for more information.

TIBCO Rendezvous Agent Process (rva) transport

The rva transport requires TIBCO Rendezvous 6.x. You must be running rva in order for the Display Viewer Applet to send and receive TIBCO Rendezvous data. If you have not run rva before, you must also configure rva to import and export your message subjects. See “Communicating with TIBCO Rendezvous” for information on how to configure and run rva.

Additionally, when using rva, the Display Viewer Applet must be run from a web server.

Note: As an alternative to using rva, you may also redirect TIBCO Rendezvous data through the RTView Data Server. When you redirect data through the Data Server, the Display Viewer Applet does not need to be run from a web server. See “Rich Client Browser with Served Data” for more information.

Setup

In addition to general environment variables (see “Setup”), you must set the RV_ROOT variable and have TIBCO Rendezvous installed:

Note: The PATH environment variable should include the bin subdirectory for RV_ROOT variable (e.g., c:\TIBCO\TIBRV\bin).

Attach to TIBCO Rendezvous Data

Note: The TIBCO Rendezvous data source may not be licensed in your RTView installation.

The Attach to TIBCO Rendezvous Data dialog, which is used to register an RTView object as a listener for a TIBCO Rendezvous message, can be accessed from the Object Properties window. In the Attach to TIBCO Rendezvous Data dialog, enter the name of a message subject and specify which message field should be used to update an object property. Once an object property has been attached to a message, it receives continuous updates. It is also possible to set up a filter based on a particular field in the message.

For example, a message with the subject orders.STATUS.London has two possible message fields: PERCENTCOMPLETED and PLANT. The first field, PERCENTCOMPLETED, tracks the status of an order. The second field, PLANT, indicates which London plant (L1 or L2) the message is describing.

Setting the Message Field to PERCENTCOMPLETED will set the attached object to indicate the real-time status of an order. Without a filter, the attached object would receive simultaneous updates from both London plants. To receive updates for a specific plant, you would set up a filter for the PLANT field and enter a Filter Field Value of either L1 or L2 to indicate which London plant will update the attached object.

In the RVALIAS.ini file, you may create an alias for (top level or nested) messages, message fields and XML data embedded in messages. Once RVALIAS.ini is saved and RTView is restarted, you will be able to access these aliases from the Message Subject drop down menu. See “Create TIBCO Rendezvous Message Alias” for more information.

Right-click on the Property Name from the Object Properties window and select Attach to Data>RV to display the Attach to TIBCO Rendezvous Data dialog. The Attach to TIBCO Rendezvous Data dialog provides several drop down menus that allow you to specify information regarding a message. If the drop down menu does not contain the item you require, type your selection into the text field.

A Message Repository file can be used to populate the initial values of drop down menus for all fields. See “Application Options - TIBCO Rendezvous” for information on how to create a Message Repository file. Otherwise, drop down menus populate based on message subjects added from the Application Options dialog or those typed directly into the Attach to TIBCO Rendezvous Data dialog. Message subjects will not be added to drop down menus until at least one TIBCO Rendezvous message with that subject has been received by RTView.

When an object property has been attached to data, the Property Name and Value in the Object Properties window will be displayed in green. This indicates that editing values from the Object Properties window is no longer possible. To remove the data attachment and resume editing capabilities in the Object Properties window, right-click on the Property Name and select Detach from Data. You will recognize that an object property has been detached from the data source when the Property Name and Value are no longer green.

Validation Colors

Fields in the dialog change colors according to the information entered. These colors indicate whether or not information is valid. Information is validated against the Message Repository file, message subjects added from Application Options dialog, or those typed directly into the Attach to TIBCO Rendezvous Data dialog. Message subjects will not be validated until at least one TIBCO Rendezvous message with that subject has been received by RTView.

Note: Some subjects using wild card characters are not validated at this time.

The following describes the significance of the validation colors:

Substitutions

The Substitutions feature allows you to build open-ended displays in which data attachments depend on values defined at the time the display is run. A generic Message Subject such as $subject is used instead of a specific message. Later when the display is running, this generic value is defined by the actual name of a specific message, such as orders.STATUS.London. In this way, a single display can be reused to show data from a number of different sources. For more information on creating displays using substitution values, see “Substitutions”.

Special Values

The following special values can be entered for message and filter fields:

TIBCO Rendezvous RTViewDs Fields

Subject Fields

RTViewDs subject fields contain TIBCO Rendezvous monitoring information. A sample display file using RTViewDs fields (rv_rvtrace_subject_tables.rtv) can be found in your installation directory under demos\rvmonitor.

Several monitoring metrics tables are available in the Subject field. If these do not appear in the Subject field, do the following. In the Display Builder, select Tools>Options to open the Application Options dialog. Select the TIBCO Rendezvous Monitoring tab, and enable Show Monitor Tables in Data Dialog by selecting the check box. See “Application Options - TIBCO Rendezvous” for more information.

Message Fields

RTViewDs message fields contain message tracking information. A sample display file using RTViewDs fields (rv_msgmetrics.rtv) can be found in your installation directory under demos\dstutorial.

Several RTViewDs message fields are available:

Select Columns

From the Attach to Data dialog you can specify which message fields to display as columns in a table and in what order they will appear. In order to populate the listing of available message fields, you must first select a valid subject.

To display the Select Columns dialog, click on the ellipses button  in the Message Field field (or right-click in the Message Field field and click Select Columns). The dialog should contain a list of Available Columns that you can add to your table.

To add a field, select an item from the Available Columns list and click the Add button. If the item you require is not listed, type your selection into the Enter Column Name field. Click the Remove button to delete an item previously added to the Selected Columns list. You can control the order of fields in a table by arranging the items in the Selected Columns list with the Move Up and Move Down buttons.

Validation colors indicate whether selected message fields are valid. However, if even one field selected is invalid the Message Field field in the Attach to TIBCO Rendezvous Data dialog will register as an invalid entry.

If no data is available for a table row within a selected column, the table cell will display one of the following values: N/A, false, 0, or 0.0.

The following describes Attach to TIBCO Rendezvous Data dialog commands:

Create TIBCO Rendezvous Message Alias

Note: The TIBCO Rendezvous data source may not be licensed in your RTView installation.

In the RVALIAS.ini file, you can create aliases for (top level or nested) messages, message fields and XML data embedded in TIBCO Rendezvous messages. Once RVALIAS.ini is saved and RTView is restarted, you will be able to access these aliases from the Message Subject drop down menu in the “Attach to TIBCO Rendezvous Data” dialog.

It is possible to specify a directory for your initialization files. If no directory has been specified for initialization files and RVALIAS.ini is not found in the directory where you started the application, then RTView will search under lib in your installation directory. See “RTV_JAVAOPTS” for more information.

To define an alias in RVALIAS.ini use the following syntax:

aliasName subject partialUpdatesOK fieldNameList

Nested Message Field Aliases

In the alias defined below named allOrders, a message with the subject orders.STATUS.* contains the customer_info message field, which is nested within the sales message field.

allOrders orders.STATUS.* sales::customer_info

A table attached to allOrders will contain a column for each field in the customer_info message field.

It is also possible to create an alias for a specific field in the customer_info message field.

allNames orders.STATUS.* sales::customer_info::NAME

A table attached to allNames would contain one column for the NAME field.

If the message that the alias resolves to contains multiple fields with the same name, a row will be displayed for each field.

Note: Hierarchical message field names are converted to column names using the _ symbol (e.g.: Customer_Name, Customer_CID, etc.).

Embedded XML Data Aliases

To display XML data embedded within a TIBCO Rendezvous message, add the $xml: prefix to the field name that contains the XML data. In the alias defined below named OrderInfo, the OrderData message field (containing XML data) is nested within the Production message field.

OrderInfo orders.STATUS.* Production::$xml:OrderDatab

There are several ways that the following XML values and attributes (contained in the message field named OrderData) can be defined in an alias.

       <Orders>

               <Order Date="March 1, 2004" Time="12:00:00">

                       <OID>12345</OID>

                       <Customer>

                               <Name>John Smith</Name>

                               <CID>6789</CID>

                       </Customer>

               </Order>

               <Order Date="March 1, 2004" Time="12:00:00">

                       <OID>67891</OID>

                       <Customer>

                               <Name>Alice Chen</Name>

                               <CID>1001</CID>

                       </Customer>

               </Order>

       </Orders>

Displaying XML Values

To display all XML values contained within Order tags of the OrderData message field, you would use the following alias. Since the Orders tag contains two Order tags, 2 rows will be displayed in the table.

Note: Hierarchical XML tags are converted to column names using the _ symbol (e.g.: Customer_Name, Customer_CID, etc.).

OrderInfo orders.STATUS.* $xml:OrderData::Orders::Order

You can display specific information contained within Customer tags of the OrderData message field using the following alias:

CustomerInfo orders.STATUS.* $xml:OrderData::Orders::Order::Customer

Displaying XML Values and Attributes

To display all XML values and attributes contained within Order tags of the OrderData message field, you would use the following alias.

Note: Hierarchical XML tags are converted to column names using the _ symbol (e.g.: Customer_Name, Customer_CID, etc.).

OrderInfoAllValuesAndAttribs orders.STATUS.* $xml:OrderData::Orders::Order:$attrib=**

Displaying XML Attributes Only

You can display all of the XML attributes contained within Order tags of the OrderData message field using the following alias:

OrderInfoAllAttribs orders.STATUS.* $xml:OrderData::Orders::Order:$attrib=*

It is also possible to display only a particular attribute (Date) contained within the Order tags.

OrderInfoDate orders.STATUS.* $xml:OrderData::Orders::Order:$attrib=Date

Define TIBCO Rendezvous Command

Note: The TIBCO Rendezvous data source may not be licensed in your RTView installation.

The Define TIBCO Rendezvous Command dialog can be accessed from the Object Properties window. This dialog is used to assign a TIBCO Rendezvous message to an object's command property, giving you the ability to send messages from within an RTView display. If you execute a TIBCO Rendezvous command from a Thin Client with Direct Data Connection or any Served Data deployment, the command will execute on the server.   

To open the Define TIBCO Rendezvous Command dialog, right-click on the appropriate command property in the Object Properties window and select Define Command>RV. The information supplied assigns a message to the command property. See the “Define/Execute Command” section for information on how to execute a command.

A Message Repository file can be used to populate the initial values of drop down menus for all fields. See “Application Options - TIBCO Rendezvous” for information on how to create a Message Repository file. Otherwise, drop down menus populate based on message subjects added from the Application Options dialog or those typed directly into the Attach to Data dialog. Message subjects will not be added to drop down menus until at least one TIBCO Rendezvous message with that subject has been received by RTView.

Validation Colors

Fields in the dialog change colors according to the information entered. These colors indicate whether or not information is valid. Information is validated against the Message Repository file, message subjects added from Application Options dialog, or those typed directly into the Attach to Data dialog. Message subjects will not be validated until at least one TIBCO Rendezvous message with that subject has been received by RTView.

Note: Some subjects using wild card characters are not validated at this time.

The following describes the significance of validation colors:

Once all of the required fields are complete, click OK to close the dialog and set a value for the object's command property.

Substitutions

The Substitutions feature allows you to build open-ended displays in which commands depend on values defined at the time the display is run. A generic Message Subject such as $subject is used instead of a specific message. Later when the display is running, this generic value is defined by the actual name of a specific message, such as orders.STATUS.London. In this way, a single display can be reused to send a number of different messages. For more information on creating displays using substitution values, see “Substitutions”.

Special Values

The following describes Define TIBCO Rendezvous Command dialog commands:

TIBCO Rendezvous Data Source Substitutions

In addition to standard built-in “Substitutions”, this data source also sets the following drill down substitutions:

Application Options - TIBCO Rendezvous

Select Tools>Options in the Display Builder to access the Application Options dialog.

Options specified in TIBCO Rendezvous tabs can be saved in an initialization file (RVOPTIONS.ini). If no directory has been specified for your initialization files and RVOPTIONS.ini is not found in the directory where you started the application, then RTView will search under lib in your installation directory. See “RTV_JAVAOPTS” for more information.

Note: Options specified using command line arguments will override values set in initialization files.

There are four Application Options tabs for TIBCO Hawk: “TIBCO Rendezvous Communication Tab”, “TIBCO Rendezvous Monitoring Tab”, “TIBCO Rendezvous Messages Tab”, and “TIBCO Rendezvous Cache Tab”.

TIBCO Rendezvous Communication Tab

These values reflect TIBCO Rendezvous communication settings. When using rvd (the default), the Service, Network, and Daemon settings apply. Default values for rvd settings are defined in the table below. When using rva (required for applets), Host and Port parameters apply. If the Host is set to default, the local host will be used. If the Port is set to default, the TIBCO Rendezvous default port will be used. See “Communicating with TIBCO Rendezvous” for a detailed explanation of rva and rvd.

Note: Options selected on the TIBCO Rendezvous Communication tab are not applied to the current session of RTView. Click the Save button to record all TIBCO Rendezvous application options to the RVOPTIONS.ini initialization file and restart RTView to apply these changes.

TIBCO Rendezvous Monitoring Tab

This tab allows you to configure your TIBCO Rendezvous monitoring settings.

Note: RTView runs rvtrace to collect TIBCO Rendezvous monitoring information. The rvtrace application is part of your TIBCO Rendezvous installation and uses a pcap facility to capture network packets. Before using rvtrace, you must first ensure that the pcap facility is properly installed. It is strongly recommended that you run your TIBCO Rendezvous daemon with the -reliability 0 option when using rvtrace to monitor TIBCO Rendezvous. This will prevent the daemon from requesting retransmissions and contributing to busy network problems. See your TIBCO Rendezvous documentation for more information.

TIBCO Rendezvous Messages Tab

Message subjects listed on the TIBCO Rendezvous Message tab are used to populate drop down menus in the “Attach to TIBCO Rendezvous Data” and “Define TIBCO Rendezvous Command” dialogs. RTView starts listening for new messages added from the Subject Name field after you click OK, Apply, or Save.

The “Message Repository” saves message field information for all Message subjects and uses that information to populate the initial values of drop down menus. Message subjects will not be added to drop down menus until RTView has received at least one TIBCO Rendezvous message with that subject.

Message Repository

Click Save Message Repository to create a file that saves message field information for all Message Subjects. In order for a subject to be saved in the Message Repository, RTView must have received at least one TIBCO Rendezvous message with that subject. Information stored in the Message Repository file will be used to populate the initial values of drop down menus.

Note: The saved file will be named rvrepository.xml. If the name of the Message Repository file is changed, RTView will not be able to locate the file. As a result, drop down menus will populate based on message subjects added from Application Options dialog or those typed directly into the Attach to TIBCO Rendezvous Data dialog.

When you click Save Message Repository, a confirmation dialog will appear to verify the directory in which you would like to save the Message Repository file. If you specified a directory for your initialization files (see “RTV_JAVAOPTS”), all repository files will be saved to, and read from, that directory. If you select the lib directory, the repository file will be available from any directory where you run RTView. If you do not select the lib directory, the repository file will be saved in the directory where you started the current session and will only be available when you run RTView from that particular directory.

See the TIBCO Rendezvous “Message Repository” section for technical details on editing an existing Message Repository file.

TIBCO Rendezvous Cache Tab

The Disable Data Cache option allows you to disable the caching of data in the TIBCO Rendezvous Data Source.

RTView Deployment - TIBCO Rendezvous

This section contains details about the deployment process that are specific to your data source. Please go to the Deployment section of this documentation for instructions on how to implement your RTView deployment option. Return to this section whenever you are instructed to refer to deployment information that is specific to your data source.

System Requirements and Setup

The TIBCO Rendezvous data source has additional System Requirements and Setup. See “TIBCO Hawk - System Requirements and Setup” for more information.

Data Source Configuration File

RTView saves general application settings as well as data source configuration options in initialization files that are read at startup. If no directory has been specified for your initialization files and files are not found in the directory where you started the application, then RTView will search under lib in your installation directory. See “Application Options”, “Application Options - TIBCO Rendezvous”, and “RTV_JAVAOPTS” for more information.

Include the following initialization files when you deploy RTView with this data source:

Note: Options specified using command line and applet parameters override values set in initialization files.

Rich Client Browser Deployment Setup for Direct Data Connection

Required Applet Parameters

In addition to basic applet parameters (see “Rich Client Browser with Direct Data Connection - Manual Setup”), you must specify the following in your HTML file to host the Display Viewer Applet.

Include the TIBCO Rendezvous data source in your applet:

1.     Add the following to your ARCHIVE parameter (found under your installation directory in lib):

 gmsjrvds.jar

2.     Add the following applet parameter:

name = ds

value = com.sl.gmsjrvds.GmsRtViewRvDs 

Note: To specify multiple data sources for the value of the ds parameter, separate them with a ;.

3.     If the TIBCO Rendezvous jar, tibrvj.jar, is not in the CLASSPATH, include it in the ARCHIVE parameter.

Optional Applet Parameters

The following options are read from RVOPTIONS.ini if not included in the applet parameters of your HTML file.

Setup Client

TIBCO Rendezvous requires that applets communicate with TIBCO Rendezvous using the TIBCO Rendezvous Agent Process (rva) transport instead of using the standard TIBCO Rendezvous Daemon (rvd) transport. If you have not already, please refer to “TIBCO Rendezvous System Requirements and Setup” before you continue.

To use TIBCO Rendezvous 7.x you may need to modify your Java security setting to include the permission:

permission java.util.PropertyPermission "sun.arch.data.model", "read, write";

Troubleshooting

You may encounter the following errors:

TIBCO Rendezvous Demos

Except where noted, all demos can be run in three ways, as an application, or via rich or thin client in a browser.

Before You Begin

Start the Demo Server 

Rich Client and Thin Client Demos only. 

There are rich and thin client demos already installed on the “RTView Demo Server”.

In an initialized command window (see “Initializing a Command Prompt or Terminal Window”):

Type run_startup_demoserver 

Data Source Demo

The Data Source Demo is designed to illustrate each data source.

1.     Start the Simulators

Start the simulators for each data source you will be using. To run the “TIBCO Rendezvous Data Simulator”:

In an initialized command window (see “Initializing a Command Prompt or Terminal Window”), go to the demos/dstutorial directory and type:

run_rvsimdata

2.     Run Demos - Application, Rich Client Browser, or Thin Client Browser

Application Demo 

1. In an initialized command window (see “Initializing a Command Prompt or Terminal Window”), go to the demos/dstutorial directory.

2. To view the demo, type:

run_viewer 

3. To edit the demo, type:

run_builder 

Rich Client Browser Demo

“Start the Demo Server” if it is not running.

1. In an initialized command window (see “Initializing a Command Prompt or Terminal Window”), go to the demos/dstutorial directory.

2. Start the Data Server by typing:

run_dataserver -socket 

3. In the Data Server dialog, select:

Start Serving Data

4. Open a browser and navigate to http://localhost:8068/dstutorial_applet.

Thin Client Browser Demo 

“Start the Demo Server” if it is not running.

1. In an initialized command window (see “Initializing a Command Prompt or Terminal Window”), go to the demos/dstutorial directory.

2. Start the Display Server by typing:

run_displayserver

3. Open a browser and navigate to http://localhost:8068/dstutorial.

TIBCO Rendezvous Monitor Demo

Displays in this demo are designed for monitoring TIBCO Rendezvous.

1.     Start the Simulators. See “Data Source Demo” for more information.

2.     Run Demos - Application, Rich Client Browser or Thin Client Browser

Application Demo

1. In an initialized command window (see “Initializing a Command Prompt or Terminal Window”), go to the demos/rvmonitor directory.

2. To view the demo, type:

run_viewer

3. To edit the demo, type:

run_builder

Rich Client Browser Demo 

“Start the Demo Server” if it is not running.

1. In an initialized command window (see “Initializing a Command Prompt or Terminal Window”), go to the demos/rvmonitor directory.

2. Start the Data Server.

type run_dataserver -socket 

3. In the Data Server dialog:

select Start Serving Data

4. Open a browser and navigate to http://localhost:8068/rvmonitor_applet.

Thin Client Browser Demo 

“Start the Demo Server” if it is not running.

1. In an initialized command window (see “Initializing a Command Prompt or Terminal Window”), go to the demos/rvmonitor directory.

2. Start the Display Server by typing:

run_displayserver

3. Open a browser and navigate to http://localhost:8068/rvmonitor.

Quick Start Tutorial: TIBCO Rendezvous

This Quick Start Tutorial provides you with the fundamentals on how to use RTView with a TIBCO Rendezvous data source. Once completed, you can swiftly apply this knowledge to building your own real-time dashboard displays for visual access to your TIBCO Rendezvous data.

Learn to:

§        Animate graphic objects with TIBCO Rendezvous data

§        Create a drill down display with TIBCO Rendezvous data

Note: The TIBCO Rendezvous data source may not be licensed in your RTView installation.

Get Started

 This tutorial requires the following:

§        Register for a license key. If you have not, you must do so before continuing. See “Registration” for more information.

§        “Quick Start Tutorial”. This tutorial requires that you have a working knowledge of RTView. We recommend that you complete the Quick Start Tutorial before continuing.   

Note: By default, RTView and the TIBCO Rendezvous data simulator send and receive TIBCO Rendezvous messages using the TIBCO Rendezvous Daemon (rvd) with the default TIBCO Rendezvous service, the primary network interface for the host computer, tcp:7500. This tutorial uses these settings. If your application will use different settings, see “Application Options - TIBCO Rendezvous” for setup information.

Start the TIBCO Rendezvous Data Simulator

In this exercise you start the TIBCO Rendezvous simulator which is the data source used in this tutorial. The simulator sends TIBCO Rendezvous messages that are used to animate objects in your display.

In an initialized terminal window (see “Initializing a Command Prompt or Terminal Window”), go from your installation directory to the demos directory and type:

On Windows: start run_rvsimdata

On UNIX: run_rvsimdata & 

The TIBCO Rendezvous data simulator runs as a background process and is ready when dots appear across the screen.

Note: You must follow this initialization process for each new terminal window you open. See the “Setup” section for more details about setting up your environment.

Start the Display Builder

If you are already logged onto the Display Builder, skip this section and go to “Create a Display”.

1.     In an initialized terminal window (see “Initializing a Command Prompt or Terminal Window”) type:

run_builder 

2.     Login to the Display Builder. By default, the Display Builder does not require a login. “Login” can be enabled at setup to support “Role-based Security”. The default user name and password are:

User Name: admin

Password: admin

Note: It is possible that your system administrator may have configured another user name and password. In this case, you may also need to select a role. See “Role-based Security” for more information.

You are now ready to create a display using the TIBCO Rendezvous data source.

Create a Display

At this point you have:

§        Registered for a license key. See “Registration” for more information.

§        Logged on to the Display Builder

§        Setup the TIBCO Rendezvous Data Source

§        Completed the “Quick Start Tutorial”

In this tutorial you use the TIBCO Rendezvous data simulator as your data source to create an animated pie graph that displays production numbers per plant, as seen below.

As you saw in the “Quick Start Tutorial”, the data structure of tables and graphs (tabular data) enables RTView to automatically create several data source specific, built-in Substitutions for you. You will see these built-in Substitutions used in the target display when you create the drill down. For more information on Substitutions, see “Substitutions”.

In this exercise, you create a drill down using the previously created display, rv_dd_qs.rtv, as the target display. First you will set the pie graph to display units completed per plant. Then you will create a drill down that will open a bar graph that shows more detailed data for each plant.

Add the TIBCO Rendezvous Subject to List of Available Subjects

Adding the TIBCO Rendezvous subject makes it available for animating graphic objects in your display.

1.     In the Display Builder, select Tools>Options to open the Application Options dialog.

2.     Select the “TIBCO Rendezvous Messages Tab” and enter the name of a message subject.

Subject Name - Enter orders.STATUS.* A series of messages with subject names that begin orders.STATUS are generated by the TIBCO Rendezvous data simulator.

Click Add.

Click OK to apply and close the Application Options dialog.

The TIBCO Rendezvous subject is now available for animating graphic objects in your display.  

Display Data in a Pie Graph

In this exercise you add a pie graph and then display the data in the pie graph by attaching it to the data source.

1.     Click  and click again in the Working Area to place the pie graph.

2.     In the Object Properties dialog:

label (category: Label) - Change the name of the label to Units Completed (by Plant).

legendWidthPercent (category: Legend)   - Increase to 50.

valueTable (category: Data) - Right-click in the Property Name field and select Attach to Data>RV.

3.     In the “Attach to TIBCO Rendezvous Data” dialog:

Message Subject - Enter orders.STATUS.* 

Message Field - Select the ellipsis button to open the Select Columns dialog.

4.     In the Select Columns dialog:

Select PLANT in the Available Columns list and click Add.

Select UNITSCOMPLETED in the Available Columns list and click Add.

5.     Click OK to close the Select Columns dialog.

6.     In the Attach to TIBCO Rendezvous Data dialog:

Filter - Click to select the check box.

Filter Field Name - Select PLANT.

Filter Field Value - * should already be selected.

7.     Click OK to apply these values and close the Attach to TIBCO Rendezvous Data dialog.

The pie graph is now animated by the TIBCO Rendezvous data. Since the values in the Units Completed column are numeric, this data is graphed in the pie. Since the values in the Plant column contain text, they are shown in the legend.

You are now ready to create the drill down.

Create a Drill Down Target in the Pie Graph

In this exercise, you create a drill down in the pie graph using the previously created display, rv_dd_qs.rtv, as the target.    

1.     In the Object Properties window:

drillDownTarget    (category: Interaction) - Double-click in the Property Name field to bring up the Drill Down Properties dialog.

2.     In the “Drill Down Properties” dialog:

Apply Drill Down To - Select Named Window from the drop down menu.

Window Name - Enter rv 

Drill Down Display Name - Select dstutorial\rv_dd_qs.rtv from the drop down menu.

3.     Click OK to attach the drill down target and close the dialog.

View the Drill Down Display

In this exercise, you drill down to the target display.

1.     Double-click on any wedge in the pie graph to drill down to detailed data. The target display opens.

Note: You must select the top of a wedge for the drill down to open.

2.     Double-click on another wedge in the pie and the same display is used to show different data based on the wedge you select.

3.     Close the drill down window.

4.     In the Display Builder select File>Save.

Go to the main “Quick Start Tutorial” 

TIBCO Rendezvous Data Simulator

A TIBCO Rendezvous data simulator is provided to allow customers to work with RTView without setting up their own messages. The simulator creates, updates, and sends out messages with the following subjects:

§        orders.STATUS.Belfast

§        orders.STATUS.Chicago

§        orders.STATUS.Denver

§        orders.STATUS.HongKong

§        orders.STATUS.London

§        orders.STATUS.Madrid

§        orders.STATUS.Mazatlan

§        orders.STATUS.Moscow

§        orders.STATUS.Palo Alto

§        orders.STATUS.Seattle

§        orders.STATUS.Tokyo

§        WEATHER.REGIONAL.WEST

§        WEATHER.REGIONAL.EAST

Running the Simulator

From an initialized terminal window (see “Initializing a Command Prompt or Terminal Window”) type:

run_rvsimdata 

By default, the simulator runs in rvd mode. You may run the simulator in rva mode by using the -rva command line parameter.

Note: The TIBCO Rendezvous Agent Process (rva) must be running before you start the simulator in rva mode. The rva/rvd mode of the simulator must match the mode of RTView in order to work correctly. By default, the Display Builder and Display Viewer Application run in rvd mode. The Display Viewer Applet always runs in rva mode. See “Communicating with TIBCO Rendezvous” for more information on rva and rvd.

Note: You must run the TIBCO Rendezvous simulator from a command prompt or terminal window to use command line parameters.

Command line parameters for the simulator include:

The data simulator messages for subject orders.STATUS.* contain the following fields:

The data simulator messages for subject WEATHER.REGIONAL.* contain the following fields and properties:

Message Repository

A Message Repository file is used to populate the initial values of drop down menus in the “Attach to TIBCO Rendezvous Data” and “Define TIBCO Rendezvous Command” dialogs. See “Application Options - TIBCO Rendezvous” for information on how to create a Message Repository file.

A sample file, rvrepository.xml, is provided for use with the TIBCO Rendezvous data simulator. In order to work without a Message Repository, move this file out of the lib directory (which is located in your installation directory).

It is possible to edit an existing Message Repository file, however, the file name rvrepository.xml cannot be modified. If rvrepository.xml is not found in the specified directory or your current working directory, RTView will look in the lib directory. If the Message Repository file is not found, drop down menus will remain empty until message subjects are added from the Application Options dialog or typed directly into the Attach to Data dialog. See “RTV_JAVAOPTS” for more information.

To edit an existing Message Repository file, supported tags and attributes are as follows:

An example Message Repository file:

<?xml version="1.0"?>

   <rvrepository xmlns="www.sl.com">

       <subject name="orders.STATUS.London">

           <field name="ORDERNUMBER" type="TibrvMsg.STRING"/>

           <field name="PERCENTCOMPLETED" type="TibrvMsg.F32"/>

            <field name="PLANT" type="TibrvMsg.STRING"

                choice="London Plant1"

               choice="London Plant2"/>

           <field name="X" type="TibrvMsg.F32"/>

      <field name="Y" type="TibrvMsg.F32"/>

      <field name="UNITSCOMPLETED" type="TibrvMsg.F32"/>

      <field name="ORDERDATE" type="TibrvMsg.STRING"/>

      <field name="SCHEDULEDDATE" type="TibrvMsg.STRING"/>

      <field name="EXPECTEDDATE" type="TibrvMsg.STRING"/>

          <field name="CUSTOMER" type="TibrvMsg.STRING"/>

            <field name="STATUS" type="TibrvMsg.STRING"

       choice="WORKING"

       choice="BROKEN"

      choice="COMPLETED"/>

       </subject>

   </rvrepository>

TIBCO Rendezvous Data Source Command Line Options

In addition to General Options, the following command line arguments are enabled with the TIBCO Rendezvous data source when you run RTView applications from a Windows Command Prompt or UNIX terminal window. See “Command Line Options: Display Builder and Display Viewer” for more information.

Note: If a command line argument contains a space or a semicolon, then the entire argument must be enclosed in quotes (e.g.: "-sub:$data:my Data").

Communicating with TIBCO Rendezvous

Note: The TIBCO Rendezvous data source may not be licensed in your RTView installation.

By default, the Display Builder and Display Viewer Application communicate with TIBCO Rendezvous using the TIBCO Rendezvous Daemon (rvd) process. The rvd process is automatically started by TIBCO Rendezvous whenever it is needed and runs as a background service. Due to security restrictions, TIBCO Rendezvous requires that applets communicate using the TIBCO Rendezvous Agent Process (rva). This process must be started manually and must be configured for your message subjects. The rva process must already be running before the Display Viewer Applet is started.

If you do not want to use the rva process, you may redirect TIBCO data through the “Data Server”. This also eliminates the requirement to run the Display Viewer Applet from a web server.

In order to facilitate testing, you may run the Display Builder and Display Viewer Application using rva. As with the Display Viewer Applet, the rva process must already be running before the Display Builder or Display Viewer Application are started in rva mode.

Running the TIBCO Rendezvous Agent Process

The TIBCO Rendezvous Agent Process (rva) must be running in order for RTView to send and receive messages. RTView assumes that rva is running on your local machine using the default port. If rva is running on a different host or port, you will need to specify both the host and the port either in the Application Options dialog or on the command line. See “Application Options - TIBCO Rendezvous” and “TIBCO Rendezvous Data Source Command Line Options” for more information.

Review the appropriate section below to determine what host and port parameters you will need to specify. If you are not sure which section applies to you, contact your TIBCO Rendezvous system administrator.

If you have never run rva, you must configure rva to import and export your message subjects. You will also need to configure rva in order to utilize the RTView data simulator, which sends TIBCO Rendezvous messages.

If rva is already running on your local machine

You do not need to specify a host. You do not need to specify a port if rva is running on the default port. Otherwise, you will need to specify a port in the Application Options dialog or on the command line. See “Application Options - TIBCO Rendezvous” and “TIBCO Rendezvous Data Source Command Line Options” for more information. Please refer to TIBCO Rendezvous documentation for more information on running rva.

You will need to configure the TIBCO Rendezvous Agent Process in order to utilize the data simulator. The data simulator, which sends TIBCO Rendezvous messages, is necessary to work through the examples in the documentation. See “Configuring the TIBCO Rendezvous Agent Process” for more information.

If rva is running on another machine on your network

You need to specify the name of the host that is running rva. You do not need to specify a port if rva is running on the default port. Otherwise, you will need to specify both the host and the port in the Application Options dialog or on the command line. See “Application Options - TIBCO Rendezvous” and “TIBCO Rendezvous Data Source Command Line Options” for more information. Please refer to TIBCO Rendezvous documentation for more information on running rva.

You will need to configure the TIBCO Rendezvous Agent Process in order to utilize the data simulator. The data simulator, which sends TIBCO Rendezvous messages, is necessary to work through the examples in the documentation. See “Configuring the TIBCO Rendezvous Agent Process” for more information.

If rva is not already running

You need to start rva on your local machine:

1.     Open a Command Prompt window, go to <rendezvous installation>\bin and type:

rva -store rvafilename 

where rvafilename is the name of the file where your rva settings are stored. If you have never run rva this file will not exist. In this case, rva will create a file by the name you specify and save the rva settings to that file.

2.     This will start rva and print some information regarding rva to the console. Note the following information:

RVA: Http interface:

RVA Listen:

RVA Host:

RVA Listen will be the port and RVA Host will be the host that you will use to run RTView. The RVA Http interface (e.g.: http://hostname:7680/) is necessary to configure rva to work with messages sent by the data simulator.

3.     If the RVA Listen is 7600 and RVA Host is the name of the machine you are running on, you will not need to specify either parameter. Otherwise, you will need to specify the host and/or the port in the Application Options dialog or on the command line. See “Application Options - TIBCO Rendezvous” and “TIBCO Rendezvous Data Source Command Line Options” for more information. Please refer to TIBCO Rendezvous documentation for more information on running rva.

4.     Since you have never run rva you must configure the TIBCO Rendezvous Agent Process to import and export your message subjects. You will also need to configure rva in order to utilize the data simulator. The data simulator, which sends TIBCO Rendezvous messages, is necessary to work through the examples in the documentation. See “Configuring the TIBCO Rendezvous Agent Process” for more information.

Configuring the TIBCO Rendezvous Agent Process

To configure the TIBCO Rendezvous Agent Process (rva) to import and export message subjects:

1.     Open a browser to the rva http interface address. If you do not know the rva http interface, the default is:

http://host:7680/ 

where host is the name of your machine. If this does not work, contact your TIBCO Rendezvous system administrator. Your setup may be running with a different http interface or you may not have permission to change the rva settings. The browser interface should look similar to the following:

2.     Click on the subjects link. The screen should look similar to the following:

Type the message subject into the Add Subject field. The subject to add for the data simulator is

orders.STATUS.* 

3.     Click on the button marked Add for Import and Export.

Once rva has been setup, the subject configuration information will be stored in the specified settings file. See the TIBCO Rendezvous documentation for more information regarding configuring rva.