Public facing WinDev app using TSPlus or similar

For many reasons I do not want to rewrite this app in WebDev. I know that TSPlus now has HTML5 access without any kind of plugin required.
So, is it possible to create a public facing WinDev app on TSPlus or similar product that does not require login credentials and will handle 10 - 15 concurrent users and free up the sessions when they disconnect?

Hi Donald,

imho Al from Australia has a lot of experience with using TSPlus, maybe, you contact him on that matter?
See his posting from October: [www.wxforum.info]

Kind regards,
G. Predl

@dmontaine

Yes.

1. You install TSPlus using their setup installer.
2. Then create Windows user accounts (username, password).
3. Then in TSPlus set up which apps you want to publish.
4. Then allocate one or more apps to one or more of your user accounts.
5. The user then accesses the server via a browser. It is easiest if you use the built-in web server that comes with TSPlus but apparently you can use IIS or other web server.
6. Your user must then use the TSPlus browser/HTML5 login URL.
7. They log in using the Windows username/password you have previously set up.
8. Provided the application was allocated to that login in TSPlus then TSPlus loads the application.
9. In HTML5 mode the app appears inside a browser tab.
10. When the user closes the app the tab closes and the app closes on the server and server resources released.
11. Your app must be built for multi-user access of course.
12. If you publish multiple apps to a user account then a popup menu is displayed from which the user can choose which apps to load. They can run more than one at the same time inside the browser tab.

TSPlus has various set up options such as inactivity timeouts, multi-login with same account (or not), etc. They are pretty obvious but there are a lot of different dialogs and settings. The default are generally sufficient.

Being a server you need to apply proper security both on the server and in your app. For example, if your app allows a user to save/load a disk file and you present them with a file explorer window then obviously they are able to see everything on your server file system ... So you may want to prevent that type of functionality. You should also have safeguards on the server to prevent fake login attempts. TSPlus offer an additional app which helps with security but we dont use it as we have other solutions for that. They call theirs RDS Knight. Its all on their website.

Thanks, but what I am really wanting to do is:

1 Have a single user which is always used no matter how many connections
2 Have no login
3 Have a single app display full screen when the user accesses the site
4 When the user disconnects the session is cleared and the next user sees the app as though it has never been accessed before.
5.There will be no file transfer or any other features of Windows accessible, just the app.

Think of the typical tax calculation app on the web. The user enters data and gets an answer. My app is similar but more complex. I just want to give access to a Windows App rather than an app built using web technologies.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/06/2018 06:34PM by dmontaine.

@dmontaine

1 Have a single user which is always used no matter how many connections

No, when a user logs into the server they will be in their own virtual environment and therefore, although multiple people can use the same login, they will all see the same virtual environment.


2 Have no login

No, as far as I know a user must login. It is a requirement for creating the virtual environment for the user.


3 Have a single app display full screen when the user accesses the site

If you login with HTML5/browser mode the app loads inside a tab. If you want full screen on the user desktop then you need to use Remote App mode which is a small browser plugin which, after login, loads your app and runs it as if it were a locally (on the end-user) installed app.


4 When the user disconnects the session is cleared and the next user sees the app as though it has never been accessed before.

When a user disconnects the server resources are returned to the user. Your app could take care of resetting itself to an original/virgin state.


5.There will be no file transfer or any other features of Windows accessible, just the app.

Think of the typical tax calculation app on the web. The user enters data and gets an answer. My app is similar but more complex. I just want to give access to a Windows App rather than an app built using web technologies.

I dont think TSPlus would not be a good solution because (1) you need login, (2) multiple users cannot share the same virtual environment (or they might but it would not work in practice). There might be a way which I am not aware of but you would need to ask TSPlus support ... but I am 95% sure that 1 and 2 are going to be your problem in this scenario.

Thanks for the info. I did notice that one of the tsplus demos is now for a setup that does not require a login or password. Perhaps that is something new.

I have confirmed that I am able to access an app by using the technique on page 230 of the current manual that allows access without entering a login and password. I have also confirmed that I can auto start an app by putting a shortcut in the shell:startup program. I can also now set up multiple sessions using the stored login.

@dmontaine

OK, that's good to know. Might come in useful one day.

Donald, you may also want to look at [www.udsenterprise.com]

Not sure if you can use it, it is a portal used to access VMs for VDI. They have a free version at
[www.udsenterprise.com] .

Art