Interfacing to livelink - general info required

[jfhart]

Hi,
it's my first post on here and I know little about livelink so please be gentle with me...
I have been asked to investigate interfacing to livelink from a web application. I do not have access to a livelink installation or the mysterious Knowledge Centre so I have been searching the incredibly small volume of literature I can find on the web. I have read about the Livelink SDK (Livelink Builder/API) which sounds useful but I cannot find any details about it - is this the standard (or perhaps only) way to access livelink services programatically? I have already tried to follow the FAQ links but getting a http-404 from greg griffiths's site. Any info much appreciated.

Frank

 

[ggriffit]

Apologies for the 404s at the mo, my host is having some issues, hope to have it resolved soon.

The Livelink APIs are a set of standard API's that are accessible from Java, C and VB, so you could create a web application that uses a DLL (ISAPI/COM) which interacts with Livelink via LAPI.

If you are using the latest version of Livelink then you may be able to use LiveServices - Livelink Web Services - which may assist.

The Livelink SDK kit is primarily used to amend/extend the functionality within Livelink.

If you can explain a little more of your requirements, then we may be able to provide some more assistance.

 

[appnair]

depends on what you are trying to do.if its only a couple of url's maybe you will get away without any programming at all.greggriffith's is the guru here.anyway as a not so entry level livelink programmer gher's my advice take it for what it's worth
the livelinkapi or LAPI is avialable as part of livelink SDK.it will not install without a livelink service.The LAPI allows you to call livelink application thru VB,java(my preference),c++ .LAPI can do only with existing subsets of livelink features.If you want to do something that livelink does not offer you have to pragram thru builder(oscript,ospace etc),This is the preferred metghod if you are developing custom modules.if you do hnot have access to KC i will mail you sample code and directions but you need to have builder to use it

 

[jfhart]

thanks for the useful replies. I'm not actually doing this task at the moment, it is a potential piece of work which I am doing some research into. The requirements we have are fairly high level at present - the application will need to support document management features (check in/check out etc), deal with workflows in some capacity and allow users to register interest in various items to receive change notification. I believe livelink supports these services so from your replies it sounds as if the LAPI will allow programmatic access to them. Just to clarify the archircture here, is the LAPI generally installed on a separate machine and access the livelink server via tcpip? Thanks in advance.

 

[samalayali]

no the lapi runs as part of the primary livelink server.I would gusee teh connection is TCP?IP since we put the host name and port inb the code.Maybe it is part of a socket call I wouldn't know.you include the lapi header/package files before coding it in c++/java with all associated class path/dependency settings right.the down side to lapi is the documentation could have included some down to earth examples which they do not provide.the lapi discussion in KC is a good place and with lots of your experimentation.have fun