Tutorial: Running in a lab

Running in a lab

This tutorial details some of the common steps to be taken when running jtree in a laboratory environment. In contrast to a field or classroom environment, in the lab you generally have prior access to the machines on which subjects will participate in the experiment. This means that they can be customized in certain ways, if so desired.

Full-screen ("Kiosk") mode

Most browsers can be setup to run in full-screen ("Kiosk") mode. This will only show the page that the client is currently on, hide all of the usual toolbars and buttons, and disable certain keys that allow debugging and changing the window size. The following demonstrates how to setup Kiosk mode on Google Chrome for Windows. For other browsers and operating systems, see the browser's own documentation.

  1. Create a shortcut to Google Chrome on your Desktop.
  2. Right click this shortcut and select Properties.
  3. Add --kiosk http://<jtree-link> --lang=en to the end of the Shortcut field, where <jtree-link> is a participant link provided by jtree. This is usually of the format server.ip/PX for a specific participant, or just server.ip for a participant based on the IP address of the machine running the command. The --lang=en option specifies the language of the browser (important for error messages).

Make sure the browser is not already running when you are ready to start Kiosk mode. Then simply double-click the shortcut. Press Alt-F4 or Ctrl-W to exit the browser. Use Alt-Tab to switch to another program, and the Windows key to open the Start Menu.

Autostart

Most operating systems let you specify a list of applications to start automatically when the computer boots up. To start jtree automatically in Windows, do the following:

  1. Press Windows-R.
  2. Type shell:startup and press enter. Windows Explorer should open the "Autostart" folder.
  3. Add a shortcut to open jtree in Google Chrome to this folder (see above).

Now jtree will open in Google Chrome whenever the computer starts up.

Running online

If your server is behind a router (wireless or not), you will probably need to set up port forwarding. This can usually be done in the following way:

  1. Access the configuration page for the router (usually at 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1).
  2. Set up a port forwarding rule, such as "port 80 -> serverIP, port 80".

where serverIP is the IP of the machine where jtree is running (usually something like 192.168.x.x).