The PlanetPress Workflow Service Console

The PlanetPress Workflow Service Console is a centralized service console and log viewer in one. You can use it to individually start and stop PlanetPress Workflow services, as well as to view current and past log files for each service.

Controlling Services

The left part of the PlanetPress Workflow Service Console displays a list of the PlanetPress Workflow services and is used to control these services.

To start a stopped service:

1. Right-click on the service.
2. Click on Start.
3. Look in the Log window on the right to see the service starting.

To stop a service that is running:

1. Right-click on the running service.
2. Click on Stop.
   If the service is currently processing a file (if a process is running, output is being generated, job being received, etc), the service will wait for this action to complete before stopping.

To pause a service temporarily:

1. Right-click on the running service.
2. Click on Active to remove the checkmark.
   If the service was currently processing a file, the service will wait for this action to complete before pausing. Once paused, the service is still "started" but will wait until it is activated again before processing jobs. This is very useful if you want to receive jobs from external services (such as with the LPD Server) but not process them right away.

To kill (force quit) a service:

1. Right-click on the running service.
2. Click on Kill.
3. Click OK to confirm on the warning.
   If the service is currently processing a file, execution will stop and the action will not complete. If the action was partially completed (for example writing a large file), the partial action is not undone. As this may lead to corrupted or incomplete files, it is strongly advised not to kill a service unless it is absolutely necessary to do so.

Viewing log files

The second major role of the Service Console is to view and browse log files. The Service Console can both view existing log files, or monitor the log file for the current day and update the view in real time.

When a service is selected on the left pane, its log file (if any exists for the current day) is displayed. The log displays in a tree fashion. The log itself is the root, and each session (the time between the start and stop of a service) is listed. Under each session, each time a process runs, a new branch is created and it can be expanded to see each action within that process.

The log viewer for the current day is always live, meaning it updates automatically as the log file is updated by the appropriate service.

Viewing older log files

To open an existing, older log file:

1. In the File menu, click on Open.
2. Browse to the location of the log file you want to open
3. Click on the log file and click Open.
   The log file is added, by name, at the end of the list of PlanetPress Workflow services. Clicking on it opens the log file in the viewer. Right-clicking on the file brings a menu from which the log file can be refreshed, or removed from the list.

The log viewer for existing log files does not refresh automatically since log files for older days do not generally change. The display of the sessions, processes and tasks is the same.

Searching through the active log file

When a log file is active in the log viewer, it can be searched by going in the Search menu, then clicking Find. After entering a search term and selecting the options (Match case and Direction), clicking Find Next will display the first result for the search term.

When a search is started, using F3 on the keyboard or clicking Search then Search again will find and highlight the next available result.