Overview

Eclient is a client application that communicates with Engine using the published API. It provides a number of functions. It can be used to queue files for processing, to see their status during processing, and to link to reports created during processing and provides details on all workflows. Eclient also provides live status updates from all active watch folders including whether individual watch folders are running or not, whether the file paths for the watch folders are valid, how many files are waiting to be processed in each watch folder, plus lets you refresh and restart the watch folders should a problem be suspected.

Eclient is available as a Windows, Apple Mac or Linux application, and in all cases can correctly communicate with a central Engine system provided that the Engine software is running on a Windows server.

Eclient may be, depending on purchased licence, installed on multiple computers throughout a facility, providing the convenience of easy manual control, for example as with Loudness Compliance processing, and provides global monitoring of the Engine server.

One Eclient licence is automatically installed with the Engine server and is part of the basic Engine licence.

 

 Main Eclient Window

The upper section of the Eclient display is controlled by four tabs across the top, and lets you do the following:

• Display information on Jobs that have been posted for processing
• Post new job(s) for processing
• Display information on the workflows that have been defined
• Display information on the watch folders that have been defined

 

Eclient Operating Modes

Eclient operates in three distinct modes, and you choose which mode from the Display menu.

• Monitor Mode - This includes full monitoring capabilities, but disables the option to submit files for processing.
• Local Mode - This includes monitoring capabilities but only in reference to files submitted for processing from this particular Eclient. So it shows everything you are doing, but hides information relating to files submitted for processing from other users and from watch folders.
• Everything Mode – This mode lets you submit files for processing, and includes full monitoring capabilities for the entire operation of the Engine. You can also choose to submit files for processing with elevated priority, and to change the priority of files queued for processed.

 

Eclient Jobs Window

The jobs window displays one line for every file that has already been processed, or is currently being processed, or has been queued for processed. A number of columns of information are displayed. By right clicking on the column headers you can hide individual columns, or unhide any hidden columns. By dragging on the dividing line between columns you can change the column width. By clicking on the column title, then dragging either left or right, you can reorder the columns as needed. The window is scrollable from side to side so that you can see all columns that are not hidden. The order items are displayed in can be changed by clicking any of the column headers, which causes the display to be sorted based upon the information in that column. If you right click over any row, a menu pops up letting you do the following actions:

• View details for the currently selected items – opens a new window containing additional information
• View the PDF report (if generated) for the currently selected item
• Delete the currently selected item(s)
• Delete all jobs from this window (opens a dialog giving you chance to change your mind)
• Prioritise the processing – changes from standard to high, or from high to standard. This only affects files queued for processing.

 

Filtering Results

Eclient lets you filter which job results are displayed. Directly underneath the window displaying information on jobs processed and queued etc, is a button to show or edit your filters. When the filter editing window is closed, a green ‘Filters Active’ message appears on the right side to remind you that a filter is being used. If no filter is being used, this changes to white text stating ‘No Filters’.

Note that the first two columns of the filter window depend on your own configurations, as they show your workflows, and your watch folders.

The Workflows column lists all of your workflows. If you select any of these, only jobs submitted for processing using those workflows will be included in the display. You can select any number of workflows for inclusion in the filter.

The Folders column lists all of your watch folders. If you select any of these, only jobs submitted from those watch folders will be included in the display.

The States column lists all of the possible processing states that Engine uses.

• Success
• Error
• Queued
• Processing
• License
• Aborted
• Error
• Growing
• Registered
• Folder
• Actions
• Inspecting

 

Context Menu

Once items are displayed in the main window, you can right click over any line to see the following menu –

View details opens a window displaying UUIDs and other data on the file that was processed.

View reports will open a PDF report using your systems assigned PDF reader (if available), and if the PDF report was created during processing.

Delete Selected Items deletes either just this single record, if you just right clicked a line, or alternatively if you selected multiple lines using normal operating system select controls before right clicking, then will delete all of those lines.

Delete All Jobs completely clears the contents of the job database. To prevent this happening by accident, a dialog pops up asking you to confirm.

Prioritise toggles the priority of a job that is queued for processing. If the priority was standard, it will switch to the “Do Next” queue, and if already in the “Do Next” it will switch to standard priority.

Under normal circumstances, the main Eclient display is automatically updated with new items, and with changing progress and status. This is done using a RabbitMQ implementation. Use the ‘Refresh” button if the RabbitMQ service is not running. Next to the Refresh button the “Last Updated” time displayed, so you can tell at a glance whether the information displayed is fully up to date or not.

 

Eclient Job Post

Clicking the Job Post tab at the top of the Eclient window takes you to a window where you can submit new files for processing. Note that the Job Post tab is only displayed if ‘Everything Mode’ has been selected from the Display menu.

 

Begin by choosing your workflow from the ‘Select Workflow’ dropdown. You will see the complete list of workflows currently configured in your Engine system, together with the description if this was added, and underneath a thumbnail of the workflow graphic. If you click on the thumbnail, a full sized graphic opens in a new window. Note that if you wish to edit an existing workflow, or create a new one, this can only be done using Engine-Configurator. If the workflow has only just been edited, then Eclient may not have the latest version but you can change to the “Workflows” tab in Eclient and use the Refresh button to re-read the information from the main Engine server.

Click ‘Select Source File’ and using the normal Operating System dialogs to locate the file to be processed. Once selected, the path and filename are displayed on the UI.

Use ‘Select Destination Directory’ to choose the folder for the new file. A default filename will be displayed, and this can be edited if needed. If the selected workflow requires multiple input files, or creates multiple output files, then suitable extra sections will appear in the window letting you select all of these.

If XML, CSV and/or PDF reports are required, click to enable Reports, and an extra section appears that lets you specify which report type(s) are required, the directory where the reports will be created. The default report name will use the source filename, and you can edit this as required. Choose whether to accept standard priority or whether you use the ‘Do Next’ priority queue. Click the ‘Post Job’ to submit the file for processing.

 

Selecting Files and Folders

As Eclient is a client ‘talking’ to a main application, it is important to only select files and folders in a way that the main application will understand. For example, although you could map a folder on your local computer, that folder mapping may not exist on the computer running the Eflow system. Therefore you cannot use mapped folders. Attempts to do so will fail. If the source files are not on your local computer, either use a UNC path, or a path including the IP address of the remote storage. 

Eclient does not process the files itself but instead queues them for processing. You can use Eclient to queue up multiple jobs as needed, without having to wait for the processing to complete. The speed of processing is determined by a number of factors, including the type of hardware, network and storage speed. However all Eflow/Engine based systems can have multiple ESPs running in parallel on the same hardware, and the number of available ESPs is a purchase and licence choice. Roughly speaking, two ESPs will give twice the throughput of a single ESP, if they are kept fully loaded.

 

Eclient Workflow Tab

The Workflows page in Eclient displays a list of all available workflows, together with displaying the associated UUID, a thumbnail graphic, and the description. If you click on the thumbnail, a full sized graphic appears.

You can right click on any column headers to hide that column, or to unhide columns that were previously hidden.

Clicking column headers sorts the information displayed on a A-Z, or Z-A type ordering. Clicking the column dividers lets you change the width of columns.

Eclient can also Export Workflows in this section.

 

Export Workflows

Using the Right Mouse Button click on the Workflow Name Column.

From here you can select and export one workflow, or you can choose to Export All Workflows.

 

Importing Workflows

Click on the Import Workflows Button. This will open a file explorer. Navigate and select a previously exported workflow. Click on Open.

The workflows are then imported without confirmation. Any new workflows can now be listed, and duplicates remain.

NOTE: This feature will only allow Emotion Engine Release 8.3.0 exported workflows to be imported.

 

Eclient Folder Tab

This page displays information on all of the Watch folders configured in Engine. The display can be customised. Right click on any column header to be able to hide that column, or unhide any columns previously hidden. Click a column header to change the sort order. Click the divider between columns to resize.

Information available is:

• Folder Name – this is the name entered when creating the watch folder
• Folder Uuid – this is auto assigned by the system
• Workflow name – this is the name entered when created the workflow
• Workflow Uuid – this is auto assigned by the system Active – This indicates whether each watch folder is currently set to Active (i.e. it is running) or whether it has been disabled. Changing between active and disabled can only be done in the watch folder page in Engine-Configurator
• Valid – indicates whether the watch folder paths are currently valid. Valid indicates that the Eflow service is able to access all of the required paths. If the storage becomes unavailable, this will be highlighted here. Engine automatically rechecks, so if the storage becomes available again, the watch folder will automatically resume.
• State – this provides information as to what the watch folder is currently doing.
• Sweep Time - This shows the time of the last check of each folder, so this is the point when the folder was scanned for files waiting for processing
• Num Files – this shows the number of files in each watch folder. If you right click over the watch folder information, the following menu pops up.
• View Details –  opens a window of information on the relevant watch folder, including showing all of the paths. Recheck All Folders forces Engine to scan all watch folders. If you believe Engine is not picking up files from watch folders correctly, you should use this.
• Reset All Folders resets the watch folders as if they were newly configured, and deletes all entries in the watch folder database. IT ALSO REMOVES THE JOB HISTORY OF ALL FILES PROCESSED WITH THE WATCH FOLDERS although it does not delete any media files.

 

Network Menu

The Network menu includes two important options.

Connect to Eflow Server Eclient works with a single Eflow server. This dialog is where you specify the network location and port number for the Eflow server.

It is possible to enter separate details for a standby server. This makes it easier to switch to a backup system, should the main server fail, such as if there is a hardware failure. This feature is not designed to let you switch between multiple servers on an ongoing/live basis. After switching between the main and the standby URL, Eclient will need some time to sync itself to the appropriate databases. Notice that the URLs need to include the ’/’ character at the end, as shown in the above screenshot.

 

Display Eflow Server Detail

This opens a window containing diagnostic information on the server that the Eclient is connected to. Useful information such as the number of available ESPs, and the number of active watch folders is included.

 

Reconnect This Eclient to RabbitMQ/Reconnect Eflow to RabbitMQ

Both of these menu choices help if Eclient is not connecting to the RabbitMQ messagebus system. At the bottom right of the Eclient window, you should see Connected next to the text “RabbitMQ:”. If it is not connected, firstly try selecting ‘Reconnect This Eclient to RabbitMQ’, and waiting 30 seconds. If it has failed to connect, try ‘Reconnect Eflow to RabbitMQ’. If you continue to have problems, please contact

 

Display Menu

The Display menu lets you control various aspects of the Eclient UI.

 

Select Display Mode (Note that this information is very important, and is therefore included in the initial information on Eclient, and is reproduced here so as to be in context). Eclient operates in three distinct modes, and you choose which mode from the Display menu:

• Monitor Mode - This includes full monitoring capabilities, but disables the option to submit files for processing.
• Local Mode - This includes monitoring capabilities but only in reference to files submitted for processing from this particular Eclient. So it shows everything you are doing, but hides everyone else’s files.
• Everything Mode – This mode lets you submit files for processing, and includes full monitoring capabilities for the entire operation of the Engine. You can also choose to submit files for processing with elevated priority, and to change the priority of files queued for processeing. 

 

Job Priority

When Eclient is in “Everything’ mode, a “Priority” check box is available when submitting files for processing. All files sent for processing with Priority enabled enter the “Do Next’ portion of the processing queue. If there is a single job with this enabled, it will be processed as soon as any of the existing jobs currently being processed are completed. Note that all jobs currently being processed will complete as normal, and it is at this point that the “priority” job is then selected for processing. This job, of course, takes priority over other jobs that may already be in the queue.

If multiple jobs have “Priority” set, then they are all processed before jobs without the Priority set, and they are selected for processing in the order that they were added to the queue. Once all Priority jobs are completed, the remaining queued files will be processed as normal.

 

Hide Status Display/Hide Network Status Display

The Eclient window is split in to three areas, as shown below.

The main display area at the top is always present. From the Display menu, you can hide the Status area, and the Network status area, as required.

 

Show Meter Info

From Version 8, Engine keeps a record of every file that has been processed, and stores it in a metering database. Enabling this option connects Eclient to the metering database. This causes an additional tab to appear at the top of Eclient, and you use this to display the information from the database. Summary report options are also displayed, letting you find the total duration of your processed content, and the total time taken in processing.

 

Database Menu

This contains a single item.

The Job database contains all recent file processing history. It holds up to the last 14 days of details, although the maximum history stored can be reduced using the ‘Job Options’ selection available in the Engine- Configurator Advanced menu. The Clear database removes all history from the database.

 

Logging Menu

Eclient stores logs of its operation. The location of the log file is configured using the File Management Options selection available from the Advanced menu within Engine-Configurator.

This menu item increases the amount of information that is logged, and is useful when debugging a problem. Note that detailed logs can be quite long. There is an option in the File Management Options dialog to auto delete old log files and we recommend that this is enabled.