Release 10.1A: OpenEdge Development:
Progress Dynamics Administration

Defining a Progress Dynamics session

A session is the context in which Progress Dynamics itself and Progress Dynamics applications run. This context includes:

Required Managers — Each session type requires a set of persistent procedures referred to as managers. The managers implement the core functionality of the Progress Dynamics framework. Each session type has different requirements regarding which managers it needs to run. For example, the session type used to run applications in Web browsers (ICFWS) requires a User Interface Manager to receive data from a Web stream. In an application development session (ICFDev), the User Interface Manager is not required.
Session Properties — Session properties are a list of startup parameters and environment variables for the session. Sessions can be defined with a wide range of properties including PROPATH settings, startup procedures, date/time formats, user login requirements, and so on.
Session Services — Session services are the physical and logical resources that the session type must connect to. For example, the session type that you use to run an application would include the Repository (ICFDB) and an application database as session services.

You can view the managers, properties, and services defined for each session by starting the Session Type Maintenance tool. To start the Session Type Maintenance tool, choose
Session Session Type Control from the Administration tool menu bar.

When you start a Progress Dynamics session, the Configuration File Manager reads the definition of the session from an XML configuration file. You can generate configuration files for a single session type or that contain several session types. You can access the Generate Configuration File tool from either the Administration window’s Session menu or from the Session Type Maintenance tool’s Option menu.

The session information in the configuration file allows Progress Dynamics applications to run in different session types with little or no manual reconfiguration. You simply include the session type and location of the XML configuration file as arguments to the -icfparm startup parameter for the application. For example, the following fragment of a startup command specifies ICFDev as session type, that ICFDev is defined in the configuration file located in the DynamicsWRK folder (the work folder specified during Dynamics installation):

. . . -icfparam ICFSESSTYPE=ICFDev, ICFCONFIG="C:\DynamicsWRK\icfconfig.xml"

A session begins when you start Progress Dynamics or a Progress Dynamics application. The session ends when you stop Progress Dynamics or an application. You can also define the session to stop when it times out due to inactivity.