Connections Tab

The Connections Tab displays a table of all applications (clients) that are currently connected to the server. There can be multiple connections with the same computer name but each will have a unique application (client) such as the Material Library Editor, PatternSmith, Workflow, etc.

Table Columns

Computer Name

The name of the computer that is connected to the material library server (e.g. “Admin”).

Application Name

The name of the application on the computer that is accessing the material library (e.g. “PatternSmith 11”).

Application Pipe Name

This information is not important for the user but can be useful for troubleshooting. It is the final unique pipe name generated from the client application sent to the server so the server can set up a unique communication instance for this client.

Connection

This identifies if the connection is either “Local” or “Remote”.

Role

The security role that is assigned to the computer. If the server is running locally then this will be set to “Administrator” automatically and the application(s) will get administrator privileges. Otherwise it could be “Everyone” meaning no role is assigned, “User” which is a built-in role or some custom role defined in the Security tab. See Security section for more information.

Status

This column updates the time for keep alive checks and/or process checks if the server is running locally on the system. Checks are done every 10 seconds and if an application is no longer responding either locally or remotely, the server will automatically close the communication pipe and clean up any other resources so the application can connect again in the future.

Right-Click Menu

When right-clicking on an item, a context menu will appear.

View API

This shows a message box containing a list of all the API methods supported by the client application.

Disconnect

This will disconnect the selected client by sending a disconnection request to the client but also force cleaning up resources on the server if the client is no longer responding.

Disconnect All

Does the same as Disconnect but for all clients.

Message

At the bottom of the Connection Tab, you can send a message to all connected clients.

When there are no items in the table selected, a message will be sent to “All” clients, otherwise the destination label can be “Selected” with two or more selected or the name of the selected client if only one client is selected.

A message can only be sent if there is at least once character in the text box and once sent the text box will automatically clear. The enter key is available to use instead of clicking on the Send button.

Furthermore, if two or more clients are on the same machine, only the active window will display a message. For example, if the user is running both PatternSmith and Material Library Editor but the Material Library Editor is not active or minimized and PatternSmith is active then PatternSmith will display the message.