HTTP mode
---- ----
O-Plan can be run as an HTTP server that provides an HTML interface
to the planner in the form of a "COA evaluation matrix".  Note that
this is a very specialised HTTP server - it supports only a single
planning session with a single user and exits when that user is done.

The interface is essentially the same as that provided by the "Generic
COA Evaluation Matrix" interactive demonstration available via
http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/~oplan/web-demos/, but it is also possible
to get the more specialised interfaces of the "Pacifica Non-combatant
Evacuation Operations (NEO)" and "US Army Small Unit Operations"
demonstrations by loading a file.  (See below.)

If you regularly use certain command-line arguments, you may find it
helpful to write a short shell script that supplies them automatically.
Some examples are given below.

HTTP mode is available only when O-Plan was built using GNU Common
Lisp (GCL).


Command-line arguments for HTTP mode
------------------------------------
The relevant command-line arguments are:

   -http

   -oplan-tf-dir directory-name

   -domain tf-file-name

   -port number

   -browser name

   -netscape
      Equivalent to "-http -browser netscape"

   -server-host hostname

      Defaults to localhost.

   -interface-class class-name

      Defaults to any-tf-http-server.

Examples:

  oplan -netscape -domain house-4

  oplan -http -server-host oplan.aiai.ed.ac.uk \
        -oplan-tf-dir my-tf -domain my-house-4

Only -http (or -netscape) and -domain must be specified; the rest
are optional.

When O-Plan starts up in HTTP mode, it always prints the URL to use
for the initial connection to O-Plan.  It will typically look something
like this:

  http://localhost:1025/any-tf-http-server/

If you specify a browser using -browser or -netscape, O-Plan may attempt
to start the browser for you or to redirect the browser if it is already
running.  In that case, the start URL will be used automatically.
Otherwise, you'll have to give it to the browser manually.

If you do not specify a -port, one will be chosen by the operating
system.

-server-host is used when the browser may be on a separate machine
so that URLs created by the server will refer to the server's machine
rather than the browser's.  (The default, "localhost", would get
this the wrong way around then the URLs are used in the browser.)

Note that it may also be necessary to use -load and -load-system,
e.g. to define the interface class.  However, a system that has the
same name as the class will be loaded automatically, if such a
system has been defined.


Specialized interfaces
----------------------
As mentioned above, it is possible to get the specialised versions of
the COA matrix interfaces that go with the "Pacifica Non-combatant
Evacuation Operations (NEO)" and "US Army Small Unit Operations"
demonstrations, by loading a file when you run O-Plan.  That can be
done by using the "-load" command-line argument:

  oplan -http -load source/help/gpdt3-http-server-setup.lsp

    The Pacifica Non-combatant Evacuation Operations (NEO) demonstration.

  oplan -http -load source/help/mout1-http-server-setup.lsp

    The "US Army Small Unit Operations" demonstration.

The "-load" takes the place of any specification of -domain or
-interface-class.

Note that the commands above assume your current directory is the
one containing the O-Plan distribution.  If you want to be able to
work in other directories, a good solution may be to specify the
full pathname in a shell script.


Writing shell scripts
---------------------
Here is a simple example:

#!/bin/sh
exec oplan -http -browser netscape -domain house-4 "$@"

The "$@" is used to pass along any command-line arguments given
when the script is run.

Or you could allow the user to specify the domain:

#!/bin/sh
domain=$1
shift
exec oplan -http -browser netscape -domain $domain "$@"


The specialized interfaces above might be handled as follows:

#!/bin/sh
oplan_base=/home/oplan-3.3
oplan -http -browser netscape \
      -load $oplan_base/source/help/gpdt3-http-server-setup.lsp

#!/bin/sh
oplan_base=/home/oplan-3.3
oplan -http -browser netscape \
      -load $oplan_base/source/help/mout1-http-server-setup.lsp

Of course the "oplan_base" definition should contain the name of
the actual directory in which you have installed O-Plan.


Restrictions in the current release
-----------------------------------
The -domain must be a plain name, without a directory component and
without ".tf" on the end.  To specify a ".tf" file in a directory other
than the default, use the -oplan-tf-dir command-line argument together
with -domain.

The -interface-class is actually a "demonstration name".  The actual
class name is obtained by suffixing "-demo".

O-Plan writes a log file in which it records information about each
HTTP request.  To accommodate this, source/web/demo/tmp in the installed
O-Plan file tree must be a directory, or a link to a directory, that
can be written by all users who will use O-Plan in HTTP mode.

Netscape is the only browser that O-Plan knows how to start or
redirect automatically.