Patent Application
20150134686
Software that is executed in a cloud landscape may include many different software applications within the landscape which are developed by different organizations. Since each software application may be developed by a different organization, the documentation associated with each software application is also delivered by those different organizations.
Each of the different organizations delivers help content for its software application, but the help application that publishes the help content so that it is visible to a user may belong to a single organization. Because of this, each organization may not have control over the delivery of the help content related to their particular software application since the organization that controls the publication of the help content may not know when to update the help content. Because of this, a software application and its related help content may be out of sync.
The present embodiments relate to a method, apparatus and system associated with facilitating the delivery of help content from a plurality of organizations to a single help application within a landscape. Each software application associated with a landscape may use a deploy phase to deliver content (e.g., new application binaries). The present embodiments relate to using a deploy listener to scan the content being deployed to the landscape. If the deployed content contains help content, the help content may be extracted and stored in a repository. The help content may later be sent to a help application for users to visualize the help content.
Referring now to
At 110, a software deliverable being sent to a cloud landscape is received. The software deliverable may be software that will be executed within a cloud landscape. The software deliverable may have a specific designated folder or area within the software deliverable that stores help content.
For illustrative purposes, and to aid in understanding features of the specification, an example will be introduced. This example is not intended to limit the scope of the claims. Now referring to
Referring back to
In one embodiment, the predetermined type of file is related to software help content. Software help content may comprise a series of html links that link to specific topics about a landscape based software application. The help content may comprise a documentation component of the landscape based software application and may (1) explain features of the landscape based software application and/or (2) help a user understand the software's capabilities. The purpose of the help content may be to provide answers that a user needs to understand in order to use the landscape based software application effectively. In some embodiments, the predetermined type of file is a HyperText Markup Language (“HTML”) file. Furthermore, scanning may be based on a set of rules. For example, the rules may be associated with indicating a particular directory where a predetermined type of file is stored and/or that scanning may be limited to specific software deliverables.
Continuing with the above example, and again referring to
The deploy listener 220 may determine which software deliverables 210 should be scanned based on a “white list”. For example, and referring to
At 130, a first file of the predetermined type of file is determined to exist in the software deliverable. The determination may be made via a processor such as the processor described with respect to
Continuing with the above example, and again referring to
Since conventional methods may lead to help files being out of sync with the actual software application, the present embodiments may provide an advantage over conventional methods by keeping software applications and their related help content synchronized. In the present embodiments, the integration and update of the help content is transparent to the users and transparent to an individual who deploys the software application thus and does not require any additional efforts by them.
The deploy listener code snippet below may be used to traverse the software deliverable, find the help content within it, extract the help content into the repository, and check if the authorizations for providing help content are in place.
Referring to
The documentation engine 240 may receive, or pull content from the repository 230 and integrate the content in a help application (e.g., the content visualization engine 243), thus the help application is updated with the new help content dynamically. In some embodiments, the content visualization engine 243 may act as a web service to visualize help content to one or more users.
The documentation engine 240 may comprise a content processor 242 and the content visualization engine 243. The content processor 242 may make periodic checks of the repository for new or updated help content. The content processor 242 may compare the help content that is currently contained in the help application with the help content on the repository. The comparison may be based on versioning metadata associated with each software application's help content. The metadata may comprise a name identifier and a version identifier. The documentation engine 240 may synchronize the help content if the help content residing on the repository is considered to be a newer file (e.g., based on the metadata). As illustrated in
The following synchronization manager code snippet illustrates the logic of a check for new help content in the repository 230. When new help content is retrieved from the repository 230 the “updateDocuments( )” handles the update of the content in the help application and the related metadata for the documentation version.
Now referring to
The apparatus 600 may comprise a storage device 601, a medium 602, a processor 603, and a memory 604. According to some embodiments, the apparatus 600 may further comprise a digital display port, such as a port adapted to be coupled to a digital computer monitor, television, portable display screen, or the like.
The medium 602 may comprise any computer-readable medium that may store processor-executable instructions to be executed by the processor 603. For example, the medium 602 may comprise a non-transitory tangible medium such as, but not limited to, a compact disk, a digital video disk, flash memory, optical storage, random access memory, read only memory, or magnetic media.
A program may be stored on the medium 602 in a compressed, uncompiled and/or encrypted format. The program may furthermore include other program elements, such as an operating system, a database management system, and/or device drivers used by the processor 603 to interface with peripheral devices.
The processor 603 may include or otherwise be associated with dedicated registers, stacks, queues, etc. that are used to execute program code and/or one or more of these elements may be shared there between. In some embodiments, the processor 603 may comprise an integrated circuit. In some embodiments, the processor 603 may comprise circuitry to perform a method such as, but not limited to, the method described with respect to
The processor 603 communicates with the storage device 601. The storage device 601 may comprise any appropriate information storage device, including combinations of magnetic storage devices (e.g., a hard disk drive), optical storage devices, flash drives, and/or semiconductor memory devices. The storage device 601 stores a program for controlling the processor 603. The processor 603 performs instructions of the program, and thereby operates in accordance with any of the embodiments described herein. For example, the processor 603 may determine if a a first file of the predetermined type of file exists in a software deliverable .
The main memory 604 may comprise any type of memory for storing data, such as, but not limited to, a flash driver, a Secure Digital (SD) card, a micro SD card, a Single Data Rate Random Access Memory (SDR-RAM), a Double Data Rate Random Access Memory (DDR-RAM), or a Programmable Read Only Memory (PROM). The main memory 604 may comprise a plurality of memory modules.
As used herein, information may be “received” by or “transmitted” to, for example: (i) the apparatus 600 from another device; or (ii) a software application or module within the apparatus 600 from another software application, module, or any other source.
In some embodiments, the storage device 601 stores a database (e.g., including information associated with help content versions and/or a white list of files). Note that the database described herein is only an example, and additional and/or different information may be stored therein. Moreover, various databases might be split or combined in accordance with any of the embodiments described herein.
Embodiments have been described herein solely for the purpose of illustration. Persons skilled in the art will recognize from this description that embodiments are not limited to those described, but may be practiced with modifications and alterations limited only by the spirit and scope of the appended claims.
