Simple Networking and The Honor Level System

©Copyright 2008, Budd Churchward

 

Simple Networking allows you to share your Honor Level System data with users at other computers. You software license allows you to install the program on as many computers as you need within your school building. There are two types of installations that you may include in your simple network. The Publisher is the term we designate to the workstation where your data entries are made. Subscribers are users who will have view only access to the same data. Any changes that a subscriber might make to the data while viewing it on their own computers will not be visible on other computers and will not be permanent. When the program is shut down and then re-launched, the data will return to the same state that matches the publisher's data.

You can set up as many subscribers as you need, but there can only be one publisher at any given time. If you do configure your network so that different users might be publishers at different times of the day, the program will manage this. It will let you know if you are attempting to launch the program as a publisher if another person is already doing so. It will launch as a subscriber in this case.

If you need to have more than one person accessing the data and making changes or entries, you will need to upgrade to Full Networking.

To use either style of networking, you will need a directory or folder on the network what all users will have full access to. The technicians who set this up for you need to know that everyone's program will need to be able to create files, rename files, and delete files. If any of these privileges are restricted from a user's access, the program will not run correctly and in some cases will not run at all.

Do not attempt to use your computer's file sharing features to set up either type of networking. Doing so will result in a virtual "tug-of-war" with your HLS data. As different users launch and close their programs, entries that others have made will seem to disappear.

Follow the steps listed at this link to set up sharing and start using Simple Networking.

Trouble with Networking?

If you have attempted to set up Simple Networking and find that your program now won't even launch, have someone who knows your computer find the following file: c:/hls/hls09/sharing.txt and delete it. The hls09 refers to the 2009-2010 school year. The number will change each year so you would look for hls10 for the 2010-2011 school year.

HLS uses the file sharing.txt to know that you are networking. It is a text document that points to the folder where you pass data between users. If you have an incorrect path in this file, your program may be unable to launch. Your technician may feel comfortable opening this file and editing the path manually. Of course you can use the Sharing Set Up instructions to recreate the file.