Offline mode needed

[James_In_Utah]

Hi,
I notice someone still uploading changes related to WW-860 . This version runs a little smother on our closed LAN than previous version. I just think it would be much much better. I will be running several clients on a completely isolated network. Currently, WW tries to download images, fails to connect to the server, then times out and goes to cache. It would be great it WW never even tried to go to the server for images. Just show what's in the cache. We may store all of the cache packs on a shared drive, so I can't completely disable the network. I also need to be able to load KML from a web server, and shape files from a shared drive. I just need it to run faster and I think adding an "Offline" mode, or "NASA not Available" mode would speed things up greatly. I've ported my previous attemp from about a year ago up to Build 3971, and it doesn't work any more with the changes to the dowload logic, and the changes to KML parser. I'm sure that I'm not the only one that would like to see vastly improved performance when not tied to a T1 line.
Thanks,
James

[James_In_Utah]

I'm debugging through the WebDownload.CS file, and there doesn't seem to be a good way here to distinguish download requests for local files, and files from the NASA servers. Also, some of my requests for local LAN webservers need to be allowed, while calls to the NASA or WorldWindCentral servers need to be forced to time out quickly or not even called at all. I still have the "Work Offline" menu item working, and I can see its state from the WebDownload class, but I just can't figure out how to get this to work correctly. Any help there would be appreciated.
Thanks,
James

[withak]

That's because a network request is a network request. It isn't supposed to care which server you are talking too.

It sounds like you need a new class based on WebDownload that only handles the kinds of requests you are referring to. IntranetDownlod.cs or something like that. Just override the parts that don't do what you want and use that class for your local layers.

[James_In_Utah]

Well, the idea is that I can set the bWorkOffline flag to true from the menu. The webdownloader can look for this and fail instantly instead of trying to go out to the web to get the the image. The special cases such as KML Importer and ShapeFileLoader would have logic that sets this flag false before trying to download files, then sets it back to the previous state once the file comes in. I'm just having trouble resolving the logic for the asynch downloads, synch downloads, and background downloads. I just need to watch the debugger go through this a few times to see where to force the failures. Once done, if the "Work Offline" is selected, WW should pop right up and instantly go to cache. No waiting on that initial timeout. It should also start up much faster, since it won't be trying to download updated boundaries, clouds, placenames and zoomit data.
Thanks,
James

[withak]

Having PluginSDK classes be able to change application settings is a bug looking for a place to happen.

[James_In_Utah]

Hey,
I actually have this working pretty well, at least here at home. I need to make sure the logic in ShapefileLoader still works, and need to figure out where to add the stuff to the KML downloader. I'll have to test it tomorrow at work, on the closed LAN. I'll post my changes once I get it working.
Thanks,
James

[James_In_Utah]

Is there a better approach? I don't want to have to change logic everywhere that a download is initiated. There are only a couple of places that need to be able to override the WorkOffline flag. I suppose each pluginSDK class could be changed to download the files themselves, and then I would just disable all downloads in the WebDownload class. Would that be better?
James

[withak]

The WebDownload class shouldn't have to care about online/offline mode. The class making the download requests should be where the behavior changes. If you have a class that is requesting stuff from an intranet site and that you are counting on to always be online then you can make it ignore the setting and always request things, while the general-purpose quadtile class can check the setting and work only from cache when offline mode is on. Things like kml layers or single-image overlays can display a placeholder image (or whatever might be appropriate) instead of making a download request when offline mode is on.

[James_In_Utah]

I'll try following the call stack back up to the quadtile class to see where those calls are coming from.
Thanks,
James

[nigel_ht]

This is one area I keep meaning to look at but keep not having time.

However, for some datasets can't you just point to a local server in XML? Even if that is "localhost". That would require hosting the data locally but you need to keep the cachepack somewhere anyway. It would be double storage though if you're hitting the your own box vs a local network server.