Barnaby James

December 08, 2006

Adobe Tracker

John Dowell pointed me to a post on LifeHacker about the new Tracker in Reader / Acrobat 8.0 - I wrote about the motivation for having an RSS aggregator in Reader for PDFCasting previously.

December 07, 2006

Acrobat / Reader 8.0 REST Web Service support

Acrobat / Reader 8.0 has improved support for JavaScript networking which makes it easy to communicate with XML web services when combined with new support for XML processing. SOAP Web Services have been supported since Acrobat / Reader 6.0 however support for HTTP networking makes it possible to develop clients for a wider array of protocols - for example WebDAV, the Atom Publishing Protocol and other types of RESTive services like the Approver.com API. ECMAScript for XML (E4X) greatly simplifies producing and consuming XML messages which is really useful when interacting with XMLweb services.

Many of the collaboration workflows in Acrobat (for example the Review Initiation wizards) are developed in JavaScript because it's a more rapid development environment. As a result, we are also a customer of the JavaScript APIs that we add and the new Net.HTTP object is a good example of this.

More…

December 06, 2006

The Adobe Synchronizer

Adobe Acrobat 8 and Reader 8 ship with a helper application called the Adobe Synchronizer. Synchronizer is a small application that runs in the background, providing synchronization of document reviews and Tracker subscriptions so that your data is available when you need it. On OS X, the process is called AdobeResourceSynchronizer and on Windows, it's called AdobeCollabSync.exe.

UPDATE: Removing the OS X Login Item is a little tricky because the Self Heal code that repairs the Reader install puts it back. See the note at the bottom of this post about how to disable self heal for this part of the install.

When does it run?

One of the design goals of Synchronizer was to make it as unobtrusive as possible for users especially when it is not needed.

• Synchronizer runs briefly on user login - if there is nothing to synchronize then it will exit immediatly.
• Synchronizer will run in the background if you are participating in a Shared Review or add a subscription to the Tracker.
• Synchronizer runs while Acrobat or Reader runs if you participate in a Shared Review or use specific features such as the Reviewing preferences panel or Tracker.
• Synchronizer will not run if you remove all Shared Reviews and subscriptions from the Tracker.

What does it do?

The Adobe Synchronizer is a networking agent that is used to build disconnection tolerant applications. The Synchronizer provides a local copy of data on a server so that applications can utilize it regardless of network connectivity. As data changes on the server, Synchronizer updates the local copy and as the user publishes changes made locally, Synchronizer makes the modifications to the server. If the client is disconnected from the network, Synchronizer will continue trying.

• Shared Review Workflows - Synchronizer sends and receives document comments and metadata in an XML file format (RSS 2.0 with some extensions) to a shared review location - either a Network Folder, a Sharepoint workspace, or WebDAV server.
• Review Tracker Subscriptions - The Synchronizer fetches any RSS / ATOM subscriptions that you add through the Review Tracker including attachments (such as in a PDFCast).

Where is the Synchronizer data stored?

Synchronizer stores a local copy of the data in your Acrobat user data directoryusing a combination of a small database (SQLite) and the filesystem.

On Windows, data is stored here:
C:\Documents and Settings\<USERNAME>\Application Data\Adobe\Acrobat\8.0\Synchronizer

On OS X, this is:
~/Library/Acrobat User Data/8.0_<ppc or x86>/Synchronizer

How do I make the Synchronizer Stop Synchronizing?

Synchronizer will no longer synchronize shared reviews or subscriptions once they are removed from Tracker. Once there is nothing to synchronize, it will no longer run in the background.

Stop Tracking Shared Reviews

To stop tracking a Shared Review, open the Review Tracker ("Comments->Review Tracker" menu). Click on the first tab item in the left-hand tab pane. Right click on the document that you no longer wish to track and select "Remove From Review Tracker". If you want to resume tracking the review, just open the shared review document again.

Removing a Subscription

To remove a subscription, open the Review Tracker ("Comments->Review Tracker" menu). Click on the "RSS" tab in the left pane. Right click on the feed you'd like to unsubscribe from and choose "Remove"

Remember, removing all RSS feeds and Reviews from the Review Tracker will cause Synchronizer to stop the next time you quit Acrobat or Reader. Alternatively, you can delete all of the folders described above to accomplish the same thing. IMPORTANT - this DELETES all of your local Review and RSS data. It is a permanent operation that cannot be undone.

UPDATE - Removing the OS X LoginItem permanently

Things are a bit more complicated than we initially thought - if you remove the LoginItem the code that repairs the Reader install will put it back. Until this is fixed, here's how you can work around the issue. Note that this will prevent all synchronization of RSS and Review data using Synchronizer while Reader is not running. Also note that this is an unsupported work-around, so you're mileage may vary. Please backup the file we're modifying before you edit it!

1. Close Reader
2. Navigate to /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Acrobat/ on your boot drive
3. Back up the RdrENU80SelfHeal.xml file to some other place. (ENU refers to the English version of Reader so it may be a different name if you are using a non-english version)
4. Open the RdrENU80SelfHeal.xml file in a text editor
5. Search for AdobeResourceSynchronizer.app. You should see a section that looks like:
   
   <key>from</key>
   <string>Contents/Support/AdobeResourceSynchronizer.app</string>
   <key>isappassociated</key>
   <false/>
   <key>iscolorprofile</key>
   <false/>
   <key>isinstalled</key>
   <true/>
   <key>isloginitem</key>
   <true/>
   
6. On the line after <key>isloginitem</key>, change <true/> to <false/>.
7. Save the file
8. Remove the login item from the Accounts System Preferences
9. Launch Reader. You should no longer have the login item added on restart of Adobe Reader.

This post was written by the Adobe Synchronizer team - Steve Dakin, Barnaby James and Pat Wibbeler