WebStart Linking to Pedagogica Activity Steps in Wise

In addition to creating an expicit Pedagogica step in Wise, an activity author may also use a link in a standard Wise Display Page to launch a Pedagogica activity step. This requires that two files be uploaded to the Wise server in the activity's project. The first is the JNLP file that will actually launch the application, and the second is the saved state with which the application will be initialized. Below is an example of the contents of the JNLP (in this case Genetics is the target step):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<jnlp codebase="http://wise25.concord.org/workspaces/wise25/Projects">
    <information>
        <title>Genetics Generic Activity</title>
        <vendor>The Concord Consortium</vendor>
        <icon href="ace-icon.gif"/>
        <offline-allowed/>
    </information>
    <resources>
        <j2se version="1.4+"/>
        <jar href="Domain/lib/domain.jar"/>
    </resources>
    <application-desc main-class="org.concord.domain.DomainClassLoader">
        <argument>launch</argument>
        <argument>update</argument>
        <argument>paths</argument>
        <argument>Pedagogica/lib/pedagogica.jar</argument>
        <argument>org.concord.pedagogica.ui.RunActivity</argument>
        <argument>Activity/Biology/Genetics/Genetics.jar</argument>
        <argument>downloadurl=http://wise.berkeley.edu/upload/12788/savedstate.jar</argument>
    </application-desc>
    <security>
        <all-permissions/>
    </security>
</jnlp>

The the last two arguments in the <application-desc> block are the ones that need to be changed by the step author. The first one is the path to the generic Pedagogica step and the second is the URL that references the saved state that goes with this step. That saved state can be created by going to the authoring links.

When the authoring versions of these activities are run, there will be an opportunity to save the created state on the author's local machine (using the File menu on the ActivityControl Panel), which can be subsequently uploaded to the Wise server in the project space of the Wise step. The saved state file name needs to have the .jar extension, but other than that, it can be named whatever the author chooses. However, it must correspond exactly (case sensitive) to whatever name is referenced by the URL argument in the JNLP file.

Once the customized JNLP file and the saved state are uploaded to the Wise server, the author can create a display page step in the Wise activity, and create a web link to the uploaded JNLP file. In a running Wise activity, when thiis web link is clicked, the Pedagogica step will be launched.