This is the README file for version 1.2 of Helma Object Publisher.

============================
ABOUT HELMA OBJECT PUBLISHER
============================

Helma Object Publisher is a web application server.

With Helma Object Publisher (sometimes simply refered to as Helma or
Hop) you can define Objects and map them to a relational database
table. These so-called HopObjects can be created, modified and deleted
using a comfortable object/container model. Hence, no manual fiddling
around with database code is necessary.

HopObjects are extended JavaScript objects which can be scripted using
server-side JavaScript. Beyond the common JavaScript features, Helma
provides special "skin" and template functionalities which facilitate
the rendering of objects via a web interface.

Thanks to Helma's relational database mapping technology, HopObjects
create a hierarchical structure, the Url space of a Helma site. The
parts between slashes in a Helma Url represent HopObjects (similar to
the document tree in static sites). The Helma Url space can be thought
of as an analogy to the Document Object Model (Dom) in client-side
JavaScript.


===================
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
===================

Windows: 1) On Windows Helma won't run with Microsoft's version of
Java (jview). You can get a compatible Java runtime from Sun or IBM:
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.3/jre/download-windows.html
http://www.ibm.com/java/jdk/download/ 2) In the Windows start script
I've hardcoded c:\java\lib\classes.zip  in the CLASSPATH argument. Not
good.

Macintosh: 1) If you are using the Mac version you should own a G3 CPU
and/or  have MRJ 2.2 (http://www.apple.com/java) installed. Other
platforms  have less frustration potential. The Mac OS version
currently is not up-to-date (version 0.1).

Linux: The recomended virtual machine for running Helma on Linux is
Blackdown's  port of JDK 1.2.2 RC4
(http://www.blackdown.org/java-linux/mirrors.html).  JDK 1.1.7v3 will
work, but much slower and show a lot of CPU activity  even when the
Helma is idle. IBM's version of JDK 1.1.8 also works well,  but this
JVM has some problems of its own with thread handling.


============================
INSTALLING AND RUNNING HELMA
============================

Simply unzip the contents of the archive file into any place on your
hard disk. Start Helma by opening the file hop.bat or hop.sh,
respectively.

If you manage to get it running you should be able to connect your
browser to http://127.0.0.1:8080/ (port 8080, that is).

This version is set up to use its own embedded Web server and a very
basic embedded object database. For this reason it is able to run
virtually without installation on any platform with a Java 1.1 virtual
machine.

On the other hand, the embedded Web server and object db are meant for
development work and not ready for prime time deployment. For that
you'd probably use an external relational database, the Berkeley DB
package and a full featured Web server like Apache.


=====================================
DOCUMENTATION AND FURTHER INFORMATION
=====================================

Currently, a documentation-in-progress is available online only.
Please refer to http://helma.org/docs/.

For further information http://helma.org generally is a good place.
There is also a mailing-list about Helma-related stuff available at
http://helma.org/lists/listinfo/hop.

For questions, comments or suggestions feel free to contact
tobi@helma.at.



--

This document was last modified on Friday 22 June 2001 by
tobi@helma.at