PIA / Agents and Applications

[..] [files] [ Agents Applications Utilities ]
      ( defaults ROOT )

This directory contains a subdirectory for each agent or sub-application that is meant to be accessible at the top level of a personal PIA server, i.e. as ~name. Many of these top-level applications consist of an Agent and the pages that control and describe it.

At one time, every top-level directory corresponded to an Agent. This is no longer the case, but the old name for this directory has been retained for historical reasons.

This directory is ``overlaid'' by your personal Agents directory; this lets you make private versions of any agent's files. Your personal Agents directory is normally located under $PIA_HOME; which is typically ~/.pia on a Unix system. The last line in the directory listing (below) will give its actual location in this server.

Some Agents, the History agent for example, keep data files in a subdirectory which is usually called DATA. Specialized servers can be configured so that this directory and its contents are invisible from the Web.

Agents

The following directories contain actual agents -- pieces of XML code that are expanded in response to certain conditions in the PIA server, along with the active documents that control them:

Admin

The server-administration agent. (Strictly speaking this is an application, but it actually includes an Agent which is used to ensure that administration tags are only executed from inside the Admin directory.) If you are on a Unix machine, you will have to give your username and password in order to use this agent.

Proxie

This is also an application, but it serves as a ``front panel'' for a collection of agents that are active when the PIA is used as a proxy.

Applications

The following directories contain ``web applications'' that may, in some cases, be made available as ``home directories'' just like agents.

Tutorial

This application provides an introduction to the PIA's tag language.

Demo

This application consists entirely of pages that demonstrate the PIA's tag language. It is more comprehensive than the Tutorial, and hence less comprehensible to the average new user; it is intended for use as a reference.

SimpleCalendar

This is an application that displays calendar pages and dated events. It is made available as /~Calendar.

View

This application allows you to view pages using a variety of different tagsets. For example, you can view HTML pages as plain text or as ``slide presentations''.

Utilities

The following directories contain files that are often used by agents and applications, but they do not themselves contain agents.

defaults

This directory contains default versions of files like home.xh and help.xh. It is meant to be the last item in an agent directory's virtual search path.

ROOT

This directory contains files and subdirectories that are meant to be made accessible at the root of a server's URL tree, using an entry like

 <Container name="Icon" virtual="Agents/ROOT/Icon" />

in the server's configuration file. They are not included at the top level (PIA) because they are optional and are easier to omit if they're virtual.

      Name                    Last modified      Size  Description
      Parent Directory                             -   
      Makefile                2012-04-01 16:18  628   
      _subsite.xcf            2012-04-01 16:18  432   
      defaults/               2012-04-01 16:18    -   
      View/                   2012-04-01 16:18    -   
      Tutorial/               2012-04-01 16:18    -   
      SimpleCalendar/         2012-04-01 16:18    -   
      ROOT/                   2012-04-01 16:18    -   
      Proxie/                 2012-04-01 16:18    -   
      Demo/                   2012-04-01 16:18    -   
      BugReport/              2012-04-01 16:18    -   
      Admin/                  2012-04-01 16:18    -