In this section, we will describe the process of creating a xbook using the existing prototype implementation. A xbook is a Grid portal plug-in, a mechanism by which an application-specific interface can be loaded into a Grid portal. This main component of the xbook is a handler script which will be called when the user invokes the xbook from the portal. This xbook handler script (or xbook script for short) provides an interface (i.e., a HTML form) for collecting input values from the user and defines actions for handling the user's input values. The strength of the xbook script will be derived from its usage of script libraries (or modules) which can be used to construct highly functional xbooks. The available xbook modules will depend on the xbook engine which executes the xbook; this is further described in Section 5.1. Another important component of a xbook is a properties file which is described in Section 5.2. A properties file is a XML file that describes the xbook (i.e., meta-data) in sufficient detail that it can be discovered through a xbook directory service. An xbook can contain other components but only the xbook script and properties file are required.
In Section 5.4, we will describe how to start up the xbook manager. Then in Sections 5.5 and 5.6 we will describe how to run the xbook clients. Finally, we conclude by describing the xbook examples distributed with the source code.
Note: we assume the reader has access to the xbook source code and has read the README file and performed the following actions: