Xilinx Documentation Navigator User Guide

UG968 (v 2013.1) March 01, 2013

Notice of Disclaimer The information disclosed to you hereunder (the "Materials") is provided solely for the selection and use of Xilinx products. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law: (1) Materials are made available "AS IS" and with all faults, Xilinx hereby DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS, EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, NON-INFRINGEMENT, OR FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE; and (2) Xilinx shall not be liable (whether in contract or tort, including negligence, or under any other theory of liability) for any loss or damage of any kind or nature related to, arising under, or in connection with, the Materials (including your use of the Materials), including for any direct, indirect, special, incidental, or consequential loss or damage (including loss of data, profits, goodwill, or any type of loss or damage suffered as a result of any action brought by a third party) even if such damage or loss was reasonably foreseeable or Xilinx had been advised of the possibility of the same. Xilinx assumes no obligation to correct any errors contained in the Materials or to notify you of updates to the Materials or to product specifications. You may not reproduce, modify, distribute, or publicly display the Materials without prior written consent. Certain products are subject to the terms and conditions of the Limited Warranties which can be viewed at http://www.xilinx.com/warranty.htm; IP cores may be subject to warranty and support terms contained in a license issued to you by Xilinx. Xilinx products are not designed or intended to be fail-safe or for use in any application requiring fail-safe performance; you assume sole risk and liability for use of Xilinx products in Critical Applications: http://www.xilinx.com/warranty.htm#critapps. Copyright 2013 Xilinx, Inc. Xilinx, the Xilinx logo, Artix, ISE, Kintex, Spartan, Virtex, Vivado, Zynq, and other designated brands included herein are trademarks of Xilinx in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Revision History
The following table shows the revision history for this document.
Date 03/01/2013 Version 1.0 Revision

Initial Xilinx release.

Table of Contents
Revision History .................................................................................................................................................................................... 2 Overview .................................................................................................................................................................................................. 4 Catalog Viewer ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 4 PDF Viewer Tab ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 5 Grid View.................................................................................................................................................................................................. 5 Main Toolbar .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 6 Document Filters................................................................................................................................................................................... 7 Document Tray ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 8 Catalog Manager .................................................................................................................................................................................. 9 Download Manager ............................................................................................................................................................................. 9 Search Tool .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 10 Find Bar.................................................................................................................................................................................................. 10 Settings Dialog ................................................................................................................................................................................... 11 Document Catalog ............................................................................................................................................................................ 12 Downloaded Documents................................................................................................................................................................ 13 Application Data Directory ............................................................................................................................................................ 14 Shared Downloads ............................................................................................................................................................................ 15

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Chapter 1

Xilinx Documentation Navigator User Guide

Overview
The Xilinx Documentation Navigator provides an intuitive and powerful tool for navigating, viewing, and searching Xilinx technical documentation. Documentation Navigator is optimally designed to support viewing and managing PDF documents. The tool can open documents located on the Web or documents downloaded to the users desktop. The title, location, size, published date, and status of the available documents are displayed in the Grid View of the Catalog Viewer making it easy to browse through the list of documents. The Download Manager greatly simplifies the process for downloading documents and keeping the local files up to date as new document revisions are published on the Xilinx web site. Documentation Navigator includes several features that streamline navigating the broad array of technical documentation provided by Xilinx. The Filter Panel allows the user to quickly filter the set of documents displayed in the Grid View based on product, documentation type, and functional category. The Find Bar is useful for finding a document by searching for text in the document titles or descriptions. The Auto Filtering feature automatically filters the documents displayed in the Grid View based on the text entered into the Find Bar text field. The Search Tool feature is used to search inside all or a filtered list of documents for particular keywords and is particularly useful for finding which documents contain information on a certain topic or technical area. Multiple documents can be opened at the same time within the same window which allows users to efficiently switch between documents. The Document Tray provides additional functionality for finding and opening frequently visited documents. To keep up to date on the introduction of new documents and revisions to existing documents, the Documentation Navigator relies on regular access to the Internet. This ensures users know about new documents as soon as they are released and are always accessing the latest documentation. At the same time, Documentation Navigator makes it easy to work without Internet access, assuming documents are downloaded locally. Documentation Navigator is automatically installed as part of the Vivado Design Suite and can be launched directly from the Vivado Design Suite IDE or Documentation Navigator can be installed standalone and used independently of any other Xilinx tools.

Catalog Viewer
The primary function of the Catalog Viewer is to provide access to Xilinx technical documentation. The Grid View displays the available documentation in the form of links to PDF documents and HTML pages.
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PDF Viewer Tab

The Main Toolbar provides access to tools for organizing, downloading, searching, and finding documents. The Filter Panel is used to filter which documents to show or hide in the Grid View. The Find Bar finds documents in the grid view by looking for a particular string in the document titles and descriptions. The Search Tool finds documents by searching inside the documents for specific search terms. The Document Tray provides easy access to Recently Opened Documents, User Documents, My Favorites, and Xilinx Resources.

PDF Viewer Tab

The PDF Viewer Tab is an instance of the Adobe Reader browser plug-in used to display PDF documents. The location of the PDF document is displayed in the application windows title bar and indicates if the document is on the Web or downloaded locally. The tooltip for a tab provides the full title for a document and makes it easy to find another document when multiple documents are opened. The ability to open PDF documents in an embedded window is only supported on the Windows platform. o On Linux, PDF documents are opened in a browser or a PDF viewing application.

PDF Viewer Toolbar The button displayed next to the document title indicates the status of the document. o If the document is Web-based, clicking Download downloads the document locally. o If the document is already downloaded and is current the button displays Up to date. o If the version of the document on the Web is newer than the downloaded document, click Get Update to download the latest version of the document. If the Download Web-Based PDF Documents When First Opened preference is enabled, then the document is downloaded before it is displayed. o Documents are only automatically downloaded the first time they are opened. o The advantage of setting this preference is that all viewed documents are downloaded automatically, and will open faster in subsequent viewings. o If a new version is detected on the Web, click Get Update button to download the new version. To return to the Catalog Viewer without closing the current document, click the icon.

Grid View
The Grid View lists the documents available for viewing, downloading, and searching as defined by the current Document Catalog. Only documents currently displayed in the grid view are available for downloading and searching. The Find Bar makes it easy to find documents in the grid view by searching for a specific string in the title or tooltip. A popup menu provides additional functionality and is available by right-clicking on the column title.
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Folders are used to organize documents by product and document type. Right-clicking on a folder provides access to several additional functions. Some menu items operate only on folders and the documents they contain. o Download Documents in this Group downloads all the documents listed under a folder which can be quicker than downloading a large number of documents in the Download Manager. o Delete Downloaded Documents in this Group deletes the files for any downloaded documents listed under a folder. o Mark Documents in this Group as Read forces the documents in the group to appear as read. o Mark Documents in this Group as Unread forces the documents in the group to appear as unread. o Show All Versions of IP Documents updates the grid to display all versions of all IP documents for all IP folders. o Show Current Version of IP Documents updates the grid to display only the latest version of IP documents across all IP folders. Columns within the Grid View provide detailed information about the available documents. The first column displays the title of the document with a tooltip that (if available) provides a more detailed description of the document. The second column displays an icon that indicates the location of the document. o The icon indicates the document is available on the Xilinx website and is available to download. Clicking this icon opens the document in the browser. o The icon indicates the document was downloaded and the file can be opened locally. Clicking this icon opens the downloaded document in the default PDF viewing application. o The icon indicates the resource is only available on the web and is not available for downloading. Clicking this icon opens the page in a browser. The Doc ID column displays the string that uniquely identifies a Xilinx document. The Version column displays the document revision for a document. The MB column displays the document size of the document in megabytes. The Published column displays the date when the document was published to the Xilinx website. o The bold font indicates which documents have not been opened yet. o The first time a document is opened, the label changes to an unbolded font. The Status column indicates if the document is up to date relative to the latest version available on the Xilinx website.

Main Toolbar

Main Toolbar
The Main Toolbar of the Catalog Viewer provides access to several important features and functional components. The icon at the far left of the toolbar triggers the application to check the Xilinx website for catalog and document updates. The date the currently loaded Document Catalog was published is displayed in bold and is updated whenever the catalog is updated. The Update Catalog button updates the application to the latest Document Catalog and keeps the information in the grid view up to date.
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Document Filters

The first combo box controls which version of software documents to display in the grid view. The second combo box is used to select a Filter Group which makes it easy to switch between distinct sets of documents. Click the icon to open the Download Manager window used to download documents from the Xilinx website. Click the icon to switch into search mode which is useful for finding documents based on the contents of the documents. Click the icon to open the Manage Document Visibility dialog, used to configure which documents to show or hide in the application. Click the icon to open the Find Bar used to find and highlight individual documents listed in the Grid View. Click the icon to open the Settings Dialog which is used to control various preferences and other configuration options.

Document Filters
The Filter Panel is located on the left side of the Catalog Viewer and is used to control which documents are visible in the Grid View. Product Checkboxes filter the visibility of items in the Grid View by product such as Silicon Devices or Design Tools. Each item in the grid view is associated with one product. To select only one product checkbox while deselecting all other product checkboxes, click the green arrow icon located to the right of the product checkbox. If no product or tool checkboxes are selected, the Grid View appears empty.

Document Type Checkboxes filter the visibility of items in the Grid View based on document type. Each item in the Grid View belongs to one document type. To select only one document type and deselect all others, click the green arrow icon located to the right of the document type checkbox. If no document type checkboxes are selected, the Grid View appears empty. The product and document type filters work in unison. o Only documents belonging to the selected products and the selected document types are displayed. o All other documents are removed from the Grid View making it easier to navigate and find documents of interest. o For example, if only the product checkbox labeled "Virtex-6" and the document type checkbox labeled "Data Sheets" are selected then only Virtex-6 Data Sheets are displayed.

Functional Categories Checkboxes work differently than checkboxes associated with products or document types. Documents can be tagged with multiple functional categories. If multiple functional categories are selected, any documents tagged with any of the selected
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categories are displayed To select only one functional category checkbox, click the right of the functional category label.

Document Tray

green arrow icon located to the

Filter Groups are used to save and restore the state of the Filter Panel checkboxes. To save the current state, right-click and select "Save Settings As...". o Enter an appropriate name for the filter group. The filter group is now saved and will remain unless deleted by the user. Filter groups are selected using the Filter Group combo box on the Main Toolbar. To update a filter group with new settings, right-click and select "Save Settings". To remove or rename a filter group, right-click and select "Manage Filter Groups". Changes made to filter groups are persistent only if the user does an explicit save. o This means if the application is closed and reopened the checkboxes revert to the last user saved state.

Document Tray
The Document Tray provides a variety of functions for managing access to documents. Open Documents are the documents currently open in the application window. The title of the open document is displayed along with an icon that indicates the product, the document format, and if the document is located on the Web or has been downloaded locally. Clicking the icon for a document already open activates the document, making the tab containing the document the active window.

Recent Documents are recently opened documents that are listed just below the open documents. User Documents allows users to easily access external documents from Documentation Navigator. To add documents, click the right-click menu or drag and drop a document into the application. The icons indicate if the user document is a PDF file, a text file, a Web link, or a directory. The tree view can support up to three levels of hierarchy and supports drag and drop for changing the order of the items. o To add a folder, right-click and select Add Folder. o To remove a folder or an item in a folder, right-click and select Remove Item. To add a PDF document to the tree view, right-click and select Add PDF Document. o On the Windows operating system, PDF documents open in a tab within the application window. o On the Linux operating system, PDF documents open in a separate window using either the browser or the application defined to handle PDF files. To add a link to a Web-based document, right-click and select Add Web Link. o The Web link opens in the system browser. To add an item pointing to a local file, right-click and select Add Local File. o Opening local files is handled by the system, based on the file associations defined for the file type.
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Catalog Manager

To add an item pointing to a directory containing a number of documents, right-click and select Add Local Directory. o On the Windows operating system, the directory opens in Windows Explorer. o On the Linux operating system, the directory browsing is handled by the system browser.

My Favorites provide quick and easy access to documents opened regularly. To add a document to the My Favorites section of the Document Tray, right-click the entry in the Open Documents section and select Add to My Favorites. To remove a document from My Favorites, right-click the entry in the My Favorites Document Tray and select Remove from My Favorites.

Xilinx Resources are links to useful Xilinx web pages.

Catalog Manager
The Catalog Manager is primarily used to update the Document Catalog. Before opening the Catalog Manager, it is a good practice to close all documents and any other application windows currently open. To update to the newest version of the Document Catalog, click the Update Catalog button to open the Catalog Manager. o The new documents introduced by the new Document Catalog are listed upon opening the Catalog Manager. Updating the catalog and refreshes the Grid View to include the new documents (unless they are filtered). o The latest version of the search index is also downloaded at this time.

Download Manager
The Download Manager is the preferred approach for downloading documents from the Xilinx website. To open the Download Manager, click the icon on the Main Toolbar. The Download Manager only works if Internet access is available and any required proxy settings are correctly configured. Only documents currently displayed in the Grid View are considered for download. o New documents, documents not yet downloaded, and out-of-date documents are all candidates for downloading. o A document is not downloaded again if it was already downloaded and it is up to date. o If a downloaded document is missing, the Download Manager downloads the document again. This occurs if a file is deleted directly from the file system outside the Documentation Navigator. o To download an individual document, right-click the document in the Grid View and select Download Document from the menu.This is also useful to force a document to download even if the application thinks it is up to date. Web only resources (indicated by icon) are not available for downloading. To trigger the Download Operation click the Download button. o Documents are downloaded to the specified Download Directory.
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The actual location under the Download Directory is determined by product, document type, and other document characteristics.

Search Tool

Search Tool
The Search Tool searches the contents of documents. To open the Search Tool, click the icon on the Main Toolbar. o Clicking the icon while the Search Tool is active will close it. o Opening the Search Tool can sometimes take a few seconds as the search index is loaded and the grid view is updated. o Closing the Search Tool can also take a few seconds as the grid view is reconfigured. When first opening the Search Tool no documents are displayed in the grid view. Search Results are sorted with the best overall results listed at the top of the Grid View. To open a search result, click the document title in the first column. o The top several Search Results are displayed in the Search Results section of the Document Tray. o To open a Search Result from the Document Tray, click the document icon or title. The Search in Documents text field is used to specify the string or strings to search for inside the available documents. o Searches are case insensitive and only complete words are matched. o Different forms of the same word are treated separately so route and routing are considered distinct search terms. To include or exclude documents, click the filters provided in the Filter Panel. o Filtering searches can be done before or after a search is triggered. The Require All Keywords checkbox limits the search results to only documents that contain at least one instance of each of the specified search terms.

Search Results are the documents found to contain the specified search terms.

The Search Bar is the main interface for specifying, controlling, and triggering searches.

Find Bar
The Find Bar is used to locate a text string in the Grid View. Click the icon to open the Find Bar. The Match Case checkbox controls if the find operation requires an exact match in case or not. The Search Tooltips checkbox controls if the find operation tries to find matches in the document description (the tooltip for the first column).

The Auto Filter checkbox provides a powerful mechanism for filtering the list of documents based on a particular keyword or text string. In this mode, all documents in the list that do not contain the string specified in the Find Text text input field are hidden. This makes it easy to look for a specific set of documents related by topic or function. Typing text into the text field when auto filtering is enabled triggers filtering operations to occur as the text changes.
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o o

This can be effective but depending upon the number of visible documents and machine load the response can become sluggish. An alternative is to type the text first and then select the Auto Filter checkbox.

Settings Dialog

Settings Dialog
The Settings Dialog is used to control preferences for handling documents, Internet settings, and providing information about the application configuration. To open the Settings Dialog, click the icon located on the Main Toolbar.

The Preferences Tab provides several options for handling documents. The Download Directory determines where on the local network to download documents. o It must be a writeable directory with a sufficient amount of disk space to store the documents that are downloaded. Select the Download Web-Based PDF Documents When First Opened checkbox to automatically download documents from the Xilinx website. o This feature works best when a reasonably fast Internet connection is consistently available. o The application only downloads the document the first time it is open. o If a new version of the document is available the button in the PDF Viewer changes to Get Update. Select the Open Web Based Documents in the System Browser to open documents in an external window rather than in a new tab within the application window. o On Linux, this is the only option available. There are three choices for opening locally downloaded PDF documents. o On Windows, the default setting is to open local PDF documents in a new tab within the application window. o This option is not available on Linux. o The second choice is to open local PDF documents in a separate window in the application defined by the operating system to handle PDF files. o The third choice is to explicitly select a program to use for opening local PDF documents. o Typically, this is the Adobe Reader but other PDF viewing applications can be used. o The setting expects a fully specified path pointing to the executable or the name of the executable if it is available on the system PATH environment variable.

The Updates Tab controls if the application checks the Xilinx website for catalog and document updates. By default, this check is automatically performed when the application starts up. o Keeping the Document Catalog up to date is important for accurately tracking when new documents are published on the Xilinx website. If turned off, the application is not able to determine if a new Document Catalog is available. To trigger an update manually click the refresh icon on the Main Toolbar. o This refresh operation checks the Xilinx website for catalog updates and retrieves the latest data on document updates. o If a new catalog exists, the text for the button on the Main Toolbar changes to Update Catalog with an orange background. o If documents are updated the Grid View displays the latest information.

The Internet Settings Tab controls any proxy configuration required for accessing the Internet.
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Document Catalog

For changes to these settings to take effect the application must be closed and reopened. By default the application uses the System Proxy Settings option. o On Windows, the Windows HTTP Services are checked first. If not available, then Internet Explorer settings are used. o On Linux, the system setting is determined by the value of the http_proxy environment variable. If no proxy is in use (possibly when working from home), select the Connect Directly to the Internet option. If a custom proxy is in place or if the authentication credentials are required to access the Internet, select the Use Custom Proxy Settings option. o The host and port information is the same information used in a standard system browser. o If a username and password are necessary, select the Prompt for Proxy Authentication Credentials checkbox. o When this option is checked the application prompts for these values at start-up. o The settings remain (only in memory) until the application is closed and must be reentered the next time the application starts up.

The Shared Downloads Tab provides access to the new Shared Downloads feature. This feature allows multiple users to share a common set of downloaded documents. To enable the feature, check the Enable Shared Downloads checkbox and specify an existing shared directory that everyone can access. When the Shared Downloads feature is used the local Download Directory is no longer used. o To return to using the local Download Directory, uncheck the Enable Shared Downloads checkbox. o Documents downloaded locally before using the Shared Downloads feature are available again. The application must be restarted when switching between download configurations.

The Runtime Environment Tab provides information about the application installation and configuration as well as the runtime environment. This information is primarily intended for helping diagnose problems or when communicating with support.

Document Catalog
The Document Catalog is an XML file that defines the list of documents displayed in the Grid View. Each time the application is opened, the tool checks the Xilinx website to determine if a new version of the Document Catalog is available. o If a new version of the catalog is available, the button on the toolbar displays Update Catalog and has an orange background. o If the currently loaded catalog matches the version on the Web, the button on the toolbar displays Up to date and has a green background. o If no Internet access is available, the toolbar button displays Check Catalog Status. To load the latest version of the Document Catalog, click the Update Catalog... button. o This opens the Catalog Manager which provides detailed information about the new catalog. o Once the update is complete new documents are added to the Grid View. o In the rare occasion documents are removed from the Xilinx website, these documents are
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removed from the Grid View.

Downloaded Documents

To trigger checking for a new Document Catalog, click the icon located at the far left of the Main Toolbar. o This is useful if the application is opened for an extended period of time since the check is only performed when the application first opens. This data contains the version and published date for each of the documents listed in the Grid View. o This information is displayed in the Version and Published columns. o If the application is unable to access the Internet regularly, the data in these columns may become out of date. o The version and published dates are used to determine if downloaded documents are up to date.

Additional data is loaded from the Xilinx website whenever the application checks for catalog updates.

Downloaded Documents
Downloaded documents are written to the location specified by the Download Directory setting in the Download Manager or the Settings Dialog. To delete downloaded documents, right-click a downloaded document in the Grid View and select the Delete Downloaded Documents menu item. o The default action is to delete a single downloaded document. o Another option is to delete all the downloaded documents currently displayed in the Grid View. For example, to delete all the downloaded documents from an older software version perform the following: Filter the current view to display all the documents for that software version and then right-click and select the Delete Downloaded Documents menu item. In the dialog, check the radio button labeled, Delete All Downloaded Documents Displayed in the Catalog View. Click OK and the downloaded documents are deleted and the Grid View updated. o There is also an option to Delete All Downloaded Documents. o To delete all the downloaded documents in a single folder, right-click the folder and select the Delete Downloaded Documents in this Group menu item. If downloaded documents are inadvertently deleted outside of Documentation Navigator there are two different methods to recover. o Rely on the Download Manager to detect the missing downloaded documents. Each time the Download Manager is open it checks if downloaded documents are missing and adds them to the list of documents to download. The Download Manager only checks the downloaded documents currently displayed in the Grid View. o Right-click a downloaded document in the Grid View and select the Delete Downloaded Documents menu item. In the dialog, check the radio button labeled, Delete All Missing Downloaded Documents. This deletes all the missing downloaded documents across the whole catalog. Once the documents are deleted and the status indicates they are Web-based documents then download the documents again.
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Application Data Directory

Deleting download documents is not allowed when the Shared Downloads feature is enabled. o This is to avoid issues with one user deleting documents that other users may still be using.

Application Data Directory

The Application Data Directory is where Documentation Navigator stores application data in a userspecific location. The location is automatically determined when the application starts up based on standard system settings. To view the location of the Application Data Directory, open the Runtime Environment tab in the Settings Dialog. Each machine a user works on has a different Application Data Directory.

Some files found in the Application Data Directory like the Document Catalog and the Search Index files are downloaded from the Xilinx website during catalog updates. Several of the files in this Application Data Directory are copied from the installation directory the first time the application is run. o These files are often updated each time the application opens and closes. o If a file appears corrupted, delete it. The file is copied again from the installation directory the next time the application is run. Other files in this directory are created the first time the application is run and then updated as changes are made. Normally, the files in the Application Data Directory are not affected when moving between versions of the application. o This means user settings are preserved when moving from one version of the application to the next. Downloads are recorded in a file named downloads.xml which is read each time the application starts up. This file is updated programmatically and is not intended for direct editing. If a special situation arises where the download directory needs to be moved to a different location follow this procedure. o Close the application. o Using Windows Explorer or a system level command prompt, copy the download directory tree to a new location. o Make a copy of the downloads.xml file located in the Application Data Directory in case it needs to be restored. o Edit the downloads.xml and replace all instances of the original download directory path with the new download directory location. o Reopen the application to verify the new locations are now in use. To copy all of the downloaded documents from one machine to another machine perform the following steps. o Using Windows Explorer or a system-level command prompt, copy the download directory tree to a new location on another machine. o Copy the downloads.xml file in the Application Data Directory on the source machine to the Application Data Directory on the destination machine. o Edit the downloads.xml file on the destination machine and replace all instances of the original download directory used on the source machine with the new download directory
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on the destination machine. Open the application on the destination machine to verify the download documents are found.

Shared Downloads

Shared Downloads
Shared Downloads is a new feature introduced in the 2012.3 release which allows multiple users to share the same set of downloaded documents. In this mode, users access and open a common set of downloaded documents from a shared network directory. o All users must have read access to the shared network directory. o Multiple users can have the same document open at the same time. o Downloading new versions of documents is allowed even if others users may have the previous version still open. The Shared Downloads feature also allows multiple users to download documents. o All users who download documents must have write access to the shared network directory. o If a user downloads a new version of a document that another user already downloaded, the old version is removed the next time the original user who downloaded the document synchronizes or reopens the application. o The more users downloading documents the more processing time is necessary to coordinate downloads. To enable the Shared Downloads feature, open the Shared Downloads tab in the Settings Dialog. o Check the Enable Shared Downloads checkbox and specify an existing network directory that is shareable. o Documents previously downloaded to the local Download Directory remain in place but these documents are not available from within the Documentation Navigator while the Shared Downloads feature is turned on. When this feature is in operation the application periodically checks the Shared Download Directory to see if other users have downloaded documents. o This check is only run when the Catalog Viewer is visible and only when the user is not actively interacting with the application. o This check is also run automatically whenever the user opens the Download Manager in order to avoid downloading documents already downloaded by another user. o If the application detects other users have downloaded new documents, the toolbar icon indicates change from green to orange. o Click the toolbar icon to synchronize the Grid View with any newly downloaded documents. Deleting download documents is not allowed when the Shared Downloads feature is enabled. o This avoids issues with one user deleting documents that other users may still be using. Users only share downloaded documents. o Other settings like user preferences, catalog management, filters, and so on are all specific to each individual user and are not affected when using the Shared Downloads feature. When using the Shared Downloads feature, there are some additional data files created. o In the Shared Download Directory, separate XML files are created for each user who downloads documents.
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These XML files record the download data for a single user and point to files located underneath a user-specific directory in the Shared Download Directory. Other users read this data to determine what downloaded documents are available. If a user downloads documents from different machines then additional XML files are created. The shared-downloads.xml file located in the Application Data Directory stores the data for all the documents downloaded to the Shared Download Directory. This file is updated whenever a user downloads documents directly. Each time the application opens the shared-downloads.xmlfile is updated (or synchronized) to reflect any new downloads performed by other users. While an application is open, the user can trigger this synchronization step using the Synchronize Downloads button on the toolbar. If the download information appears corrupted, close the application and delete the shared-downloads.xml file located in Application Data Directory. On reopening the application, the file is regenerated using the data stored in all the XML files stored in Shared Download Directory.

Shared Downloads

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