Switching from online to offline client help

On a Spotfire Web Player service, you can change the configuration so that when you click a help button in the web client, it opens a version of the Spotfire user guide that you host locally, instead of the default online documentation. This can be useful if you work in an environment where you cannot access the online user guide.

Before you begin

You must have a web server where you can host the user guide.

Note: When you use a locally hosted user guide, remember that you must download and update your user guide whenever you upgrade Spotfire.

Downloading the user guide

First you must download the Spotfire web client user guide for your version of Spotfire, and host it on a web server.

Procedure

In a web browser, go to https://docs.tibco.com/products/spotfire-analyst, and use the drop-down menu to select your version of Spotfire.
Click Download All Documentation.
Unpack the downloaded .zip file, and in the extracted files, locate the directory TIB_sfire_client.
Copy the TIB_sfire_client directory to the web server where you want to host it.

Changing the Web Player service configuration

Procedure

On the computer running Spotfire Server, open a command-line interface as an administrator, and change the directory to the location of the config.bat file (config.sh on Linux). The default location is <installation-dir>/tomcat/spotfire-bin.
To export a service configuration, run the export-service-config command:
```
config export-service-config --config-name=<ServiceConfigurationName>
```
In the exported configuration, edit the file spotfire.dxp.worker.web.config, and change the settings helpUrl and useDefaultHelpUrl to:
```
<application helpUrl="<my-web-server>/TIB_sfire_client/" useDefaultHelpUrl="false" />
```
To update the service configuration with your changes, use the import-service-config command:
```
config import-service-config --config-name=<ServiceConfigurationName>
```

Updating your Web Player services

After you have updated the service configuration, make sure that all Web Player services that use the service configuration are updated with the new version:

About this task

Procedure

In a web browser, log in to the Spotfire Server web administration pages, and click Nodes & Services.
On the Network page, under Node managers, expand the node of interest and click the service whose configuration you want to view.
If the service is not already updated with the latest version of the configuration, click Update service config, and in the dialog that opens, click Update.

Note: Any Web Player service that you update restarts to load the new configuration.

Results

When your Web Player services have restarted, you can click the Help buttons in the Spotfire web client to open your locally hosted version of the Spotfire user guide in a new browser tab.