Deploying Productions

[keimor]

I am evaluating Limelight and I am curious how you would deploy a
production. Can you use JNLP and Web Start to deploy a production? Any
insights would be great.

[Micah Martin]

The Limelight paradigm is similar to a web browser. Once you have
Limelight installed on your computer you can download any Limelight
production. Production can be published on Playbills or on some HTTP
server. You can update your published production at will and the
update will be transparent to users; they need not update their
Limelight installation.

You could also package up Limelight with your production to create
traditional installers and users wouldn't even know that Limelight was
being used. It takes a bit of hacking but we've done it before.

JNLP and Web Start should be possible, though I haven't seen it done
yet.

Micah

[Dr Keith A. Morneau]

Thanks, I am just trying to get my head around Limelight. Technically,
we would have to install jruby and then limelight. I am just trying to
figure out an easy way for nontechnical folks to install the
prerequisites and then the productions. I am asking a lot of questions
on this because I have gotten burnt in the past trying to deliver apps
to customers on multiple platforms. I have to deliver on a mac and pc
platform at a minimum usually.

I really like the the Limelight concept and the concept is very intriguing.

I understand that Limelight is similar to a web browser and it appears
that you can easily switch the http server to a different one from
Playbills if needed. I could see playbills being the centralized place
(like a directory) with links to other "playbills" in the future. I
hate to start looking at how to deploy apps first before I start
really diving in Limelight but I just want to make sure that I can
easily deliver apps to customers. I would have to get jruby installed,
limelight installed pretty easily on a customer's machine. These
customers are very computer illiterate so I have to make the initial
install process as painless as possible for them. I am not dealing
with really complex applications at all. Pretty small educational
games/applications. The fact that the updates could be transparent to
the user is a big plus.

Keith

[Micah Martin]

A couple tidbits that might be helpful...

Using the Limelight installers will install Limelight (of course) and
JRuby. It's also possible to create installers with Java bundled so
that Windows users don't have to install Java. I can provide such
installers if there's a need.

Assuming your users have Limelight installed, you could simply give
them a .lll (Limelight Link) file. The .lll file just contains a URL
pointing at a .llp file. Users can double click on the .lll file to
open your production.

Micah

[Dr Keith A. Morneau]

Great, thanks. As a noob, the .llp file is created through the
limelight pack command, right? I did notice that the .lll file was a
url which is why I thought it would be easy to switch http servers. I
have been slowly diving into the limelight docs and will start
developing some samples to get me started.

Keith