User Guide for Cisco MXE 3000 Release 2.0
Folder Attendant XML Reference

Table Of Contents

Folder Attendant XML Reference

Reference XML Configuration File

General Tags

Directory Tags

Copy Complete Tags

Watch Tags

Extension List Tag

Extension Tags

Job Tags

Meta Data Tags

File Input Tags

System Setting Tags

Reference XML Application Configuration File

Submitting Media and XML Files


Folder Attendant XML Reference


Revised: October 10, 2008, OL-16995-01

This section includes the following topics:

Reference XML Configuration File

Reference XML Application Configuration File

Submitting Media and XML Files

Reference XML Configuration File

The Folder Attendant Configuration file (faConfig.xml) defines the directory watch configuration.

This file can be found at: C:\Program Files\Cisco\MXE Folder Attendant Service\bin\faConfg.xml

This section describes the following tags:

General Tags

Directory Tags

Copy Complete Tags

Watch Tags

Extension List Tag

Extension Tags

Job Tags

Meta Data Tags

File Input Tags

System Setting Tags

General Tags

Tag
Description

monitor-window

Specifies whether preprocessed and encoded images should be displayed in a monitor window.

Possible choices are:

On

Off


Directory Tags

The file may contain one or more <directory> tags.

Tag
Description

enabled

Possible choices:

true, if directory is enabled for monitoring.

false, if not.

id

Unique identifier for directory (integer > 0)

path

Directory path to watch. Can be a network share or FTP URL:

ftp:\\[username:password]@hostname[:port]\directory

refresh

Frequency at which directory is monitored (in seconds).

maxSubmitRetries

Maximum number of attempts to resubmit a failed job submission.

submitRetryInterval

Frequency at which failed jobs are resubmitted (in seconds).


Copy Complete Tags

The directory may contain one <copyComplete> tag. The following parameters are used to assign the method for determining when a file has been completely copied to the monitored directory and is ready for submission. These methods will behave differently on different operating systems.

Tag
Description

method

Method for determining when file copy is complete:

rename-to-self: Attempt to rename file to itself.

rename-to-tmp: Attempt to rename file to [filename]-tmp and back to original file name.

file-size-delay: Wait fileDelay seconds since last file size change.

file-modified-delay: Wait fileDelay seconds since last modified time change.

control-file: Wait for control file ([filename].ctl) to be added to directory.

exclusive-open: Attempt to open file exclusively.

immediate: Process file immediately without waiting for file to be completely copied.

fileDelay

Minimum time (in seconds) since last file change indicating that file copy is complete. This parameter only applies to file-size-delay and file-modified-delay methods.


Watch Tags

A directory may contain one or more <watch> tags.

Extension List Tag

A watch may contain one <extensionList> tag.

Extension Tags

An extension list may contain one or more <ext> tags.

Tag
Description

ext

File extension to watch for (.mov, .xml, etc.).


Job Tags

A watch may contain one <job> tag.

Tag
Description

job-priority

Job priority. Positive integer between 1 and 100, with 1 indicating the highest priority.


Meta Data Tags

Tag
Description

meta-title

Defaults to filename of source clip if not specified.

meta-author

Job author.

meta-description

Job description.

meta-copyright

Copyright notice.

meta-rating

Audience rating.

meta-keywords

Comma-separated list of keywords.

meta-timecode

Start timecode taken from the media file.

udm-item

User defined meta data item. The item name and value are given as attributes of the tag, as shown:

<udm-item name="myItemName" value="mytextValue"></udm-item>

File Input Tags

Tag
Description

profile

Name of the job profile (i.e. conform.job.awp). The path is constructed using the system profile directory (as configured in the system settings).

source-inpoint

Starting point for encoding relative to start of the clip. Format is HH.MM.SS.XXX.

source-outpoint

End of encoding for the clip. If this number is positive, it specifies the end point relative to the beginning of the clip. If this number is negative, it specifies the end point relative to the end of the clip.

In other words, -3.0 means that encoding stops 3 seconds prior to the end of the clip. This must be in HH.MM.SS.XXX format. Not available with file formats that are non-seekable.

delete-source-after-process

Indicates if the source clip will be deleted after successful processing. Deletion is done by the File Manager worker at the end of the job. Source clips are not deleted when a job fails. Valid values of "true" or "yes" will turn this option on. It is false by default.

Note XML files are not deleted.


System Setting Tags

A watch many contain one <system-settings> tag.

Tag
Description

output-basename

Specifies the output base name. That name is available in the Output profile through the $(basename) variable. All encoded files receive names derived from this base name.

These tags all define output directories for various types of output. A complete directory specification, including machine name or drive letter is expected.

report-dir

Location of file report of job execution (from HTTP POST notification).

flash8-output-dir

h264-output-dir

mpeg-output-dir

mp3-output-dir

ms-output-dir

pp-output-dir

qt-output-dir

real-output-dir

thumb-output-dir

Thumbnail images output directory.

wav-output-dir


Reference XML Application Configuration File

The following application configuration parameters are defined in the FolderAttendantService.exe.config file:

Tag
Description

folderAttendant.adminPort

Port for administration command listener (3515). This value must be changed if running on same machine as legacy FA

folderAttendant.configFile

Fully qualified path for FA configuration file (c:\program files\Cisco\MXE Folder Attendant Service\bin\faConfig.xml)

folderAttendant.xmlExtensions

File extensions for XML files (.rdf, .xml, etc.)

folderAttendant.fileExclusionRegex

Regular expression for file names to exclude from processing (i.e., ^\. to ignore files that start with a period)

ecs.host

Default ECS host name (localhost). This value must be changed if the ECS is installed on a different machine.

Ecs.port

Default ECS port (3501)

ecs.receiveTimeout

Timeout in milliseconds for receiving response from ECS

plannersFile

Planner/XSLT transform configuration file

plannersAssemblyPath

Root directory for configured planner assemblies

transformsPath

Root directory for configured XSLT transforms

profileTypesFile

Config file containing list of profile types

settingsDefinitionFile

System setting definition file

basePath

Fully qualified path to the API root directory (C:\Program Files\Common Files\Cisco\MXEAPI)


Submitting Media and XML Files

Once a directory is monitored by the Folder Attendant for a given set of file extensions, if a new or updated (change in file size or last modified date) media or XML file, with a matching file extension, is copied to the directory, the Folder Attendant will submit a job.

For media files, a <jobPackage> XML document containing a <jobList> of nested <jobPackage>s each containing <planner-submit> XML for each matching directory watch will be submitted. Each nested <jobPackage> will contain the system settings configured for the given directory watch. The <planner-submit> XML will include the media file name and configured job parameters (meta data, priority, etc.) for the given directory watch.

For example, consider a directory that has been configured for two directory watches, each watching for .mov files and assigned a different Job Profile and metadata. The following plan XML will be generated by Folder Attendant and submitted via the API:

<jobPackage>
    <submitParameterList>
          <jobData>
                <folderAttendant>
                           <fileName>filename of .MOV file</fileName>
                </folderAttendant>
          </jobData>
      </submitParameterList>
      <jobList>
       <!— job package for directory watch #1 ->
       <jobPackage>
              <submitParameterList>
                       <setting name="setingName">watch1 settingValue</setting>
                         ...
               </submitParameterList>
               <jobList>
                         <planner-submit>
                                 <profile-dir>watch1 configured job profile</profile-dir>
                                 <source-name>filename of .MOV file</source-name>
                                 <meta-title>watch1 meta title</meta-title>
                                  ....
                         </planner-submit>
                </jobList>
         </jobPackage>
         <!— job package for directory watch #2 ->
         <jobPackage>
                <submitParameterList>
                      <setting name="setingName">watch2 settingValue</setting>
                        ...
               </submitParameterList>
               <jobList>
                     <planner-submit>
                             <profile-dir>watch2 configured job profile</profile-dir>
                             <source-name>filename of .MOV file</source-name>
                             <meta-title>watch2 meta title</meta-title>
                              ....
                    </planner-submit>
               </jobList>
         </jobPackage>
     </jobList>
</jobPackage>

For XML plan files, a <jobPackage> XML document containing the contents of the XML file and any system settings configured for the given directory watch will be submitted for each matching directory watch. Note that any job parameters (such as metadata, job priority, etc.) configured for the directory watch are ignored. A file is processed as an XML file if the file extension is configured in the following application configuration file parameter (folderAttendant.xmlExtensions). Currently (.xml and .rdf) are configured as default XML file extensions.

The XML document can support any plan XML format supported by the API including:

<planner-submit>

<job>

<jobPackage>

<multiPackage>

Custom plan XML if supported by configured API planners and transforms