Intranet managers today are faced with the overwhelming task of managing reams of content from a growing diversity of sources. Complicating matters, this content changes frequently and needs to be updated in a timely manner. Add the fact that users are increasingly insisting on the ability to view documents within their choice of Web browser, regardless of content type, and you have the growing problem companies are facing.

Functionally the solution would seem to be portable publishing/document management technology, the space opened by the Web and made practical by document conversion tools like HTML Transit, by InfoAccess Inc. For higher fidelity rendering, Java-based technology, such as Net-It Software's jDoc^TM, surmounts many of HTML's formatting limitations.

An alternative with several differentiating advantges is Common Ground Web Publisher 4.0 from Hummingbird Communications Ltd. Hummingbird, headquartered in North York, Ontario, Canada, is best known for its award-winning X-terminal emulation software, Exceed. Knowledge of PC-to-Unix internetworking runs deep at Hummingbird. In 1995, the company acquired electronic publishing startup Common Ground, gaining by the acquisition an elegant portable document technology called DigitalPaper. (See the sidebar, "Portable Electronic Documents.")

That was before the Web flattened proprietary document sharing.

Hummingbird on caffeine

Common Ground Web Publisher is a two-stage, Java-based distributed publishing solution for Intranets. At the heart is DigitalPaper, still proprietary but set free by platform-tolerant Java. As a result Common Ground can translate virtually any source document into a file that can be displayed in a Java-enabled Web browser.

Universally viewable files are only half of Common Ground's solution to the Intranet publishing paradigm. Because Intranets are called on to provide geographically distributed employees with real time access to data, a centralized document management and publishing system can help keep things organized and available. Common Ground tackles this requirement by letting users deposit source documents (in their native formats) in "drop boxes" for scheduled, automated publishing to a production Web server. This feature, which gives Web Publisher 4.0 its name, enables a system administrator to set up Drop Boxes anywhere on a network that can be accessed by the Common Ground server. This can be across a building or a continent.

Once a user drags source documents into the appropriate drop box, Common Ground automatically converts them to DigitalPaper format, a single file with the .dp extension. Output routes to the appropriate area on the corporate Web server, making updates available via intranet / extranet in near-real-time.

The Out-of-Box Experience

Installation of Common Ground Web Publisher 4.0 was as typical as any installation. The entire process took only a few minutes with minimal user input, no doubt a benefit of Hummingbird's past experience coaching users through far more technical X-Window terminal setups.

A setup wizard does most of the work, prompting you for the document root of your Web server as well as the directory where CGI scripts are housed. The default values presented assume that you are using Microsoft's IIS Web server.

Common Ground Web Publisher is a server-based solution. The application only runs on Windows NT 4.0 (sp3 recommended), but is capable of publishing to any Web server platform. Although Common Ground can be located on the same machine as the Web server that it is publishing to, I advise against it, because of the memory and processor power that the application needs to run efficiently (64MB RAM strongly recommended).

Once I installed the software, my next step was to set up the program for automated document publishing. Common Ground makes use of a number of components to facilitate the conversion, publishing, and viewing of documents on the corporate Intranet. The main components used are DigitalPaper Express, DigitalPaper Maker, PostScript Converter, DPServ, the Web Publishing System, NetResults Web Search and Indexing Engine, DPPrint, and the Java-powered DigitalPaper Viewer.

Express yourself

DigitalPaper Express is a batch-processing program that allows for the creation of DigitalPaper documents. The user interface is simple and effective. Choices are laid out as a series of tabs, each tab containing a number of options relating to a specific function. Step One in setting up the automated publishing service is to assign a name to the batch conversion process about to be created.

After assigning a name to the process, it's time to define input and output directories. Input directories, also known as "Drop Boxes," are folders that can be located anywhere on the corporate network, from network drives to file servers. Output directories, on the other hand, are the locations on the Web server where documents already converted to DigitalPaper format are hosted for viewing.

A remarkable feature of the DigitalPaper format is its flexible, strong encryption-based document security. Documents transported with Common Ground eb Publisher 4.0 can readily be configured so that printing is not allowed, text cannot be copied, or graphics cannot be copied. These features will appeal to any firm grappling with intellectual property and licensing issues.

More, DigitalPaper documents can be password protected. Security features also allow server administrators to enable/disable the creation of table of contents entries, hyperlinks, guides, and annotations. Companies eyeing their intranet as a conduit for sensitive or access-controlled info will delight in these native features.

Start the Presses

No automated Intranet publishing solution would be complete without scheduling features, and Common Ground is no exception. Administrators have the option of scheduling jobs on a single-shot or recurring basis. The latter is conveniently augmented by letting Common Ground scan your input directories for regular updates. Disabling scheduling has the effect of converting the selected documents only once, immediately after the job is setup.

The process by which documents are converted to DigitalPaper format does not actually take place until a particular job is executed. Depending on the document's original format, one of two actions will take place. If the documents are PostScript files, DigitalPaper Express will launch the PostScript Converter, which will automatically convert the PostScript files to DigitalPaper documents. If the files are not PostScript files, DigitalPaper Express converts them by launching the application associated with the source file and printing the document with a special printer driver called the DigitalPaper Maker. The DigitalPaper Maker works by using the associated application's Print-to function. Because of this, it is necessary to have a copy of the applications used to create all source documents residing on the same server as the Common Ground Web Publishing application. As you can imagine, this is not always practical nor is it always acceptable. An alternative solution exists. A small utility called Quick View Plus by Inso Corp. allows over 200 file formats to be viewed and printed without the need for the native application.

Once documents have been converted, the next step is to get them to the Web server for viewing. This task is accomplished by the Web Publishing System component. The Web Publishing System is an administrator configurable program for moving DigitalPaper documents from the directories specified in DigitalPaper Express jobs to appropriate directories on the Web server. This is accomplished by copying the files (if the Web server is located on the same machine as the Common Ground server) or by FTP. In addition, the Web Publishing system is responsible for automatically creating and updating tables of contents (in HTML) for the converted documents. The Web Publishing System also contains HTML templates that can be used and modified to deliver a customized "look and feel" to your DigitalPaper documents.

Common Ground Web Publisher 4.0 also comes complete with Innotech's NetResults Web Search and Indexing Engine. This 100% Java search engine is capable of indexing HTML, plain text, PostScript^TM, and DigitalPaper documents. The engine itself is quite sophisticated, featuring versatile enhancements such as multiple indexes, index scheduling, and customized templates that make it scalable to enterprise strength.

From the user's perspective, Common Ground presents a unique tool for viewing and interacting with DigitalPaper documents. DigitalPaper documents are configured to display using the Java-powered DigitalPaper Viewer. This modestly sized applet is installed automatically on the Web server when a DigitalPaper document collection is first posted to the server. Like any applet the viewer is downloaded once and cached by the Web browser thereafter. It allows viewing and server-side printing (via the DPPrint component) of DigitalPaper documents.

Particularly in light of Java's strictly limited printer support -- an artifact of its evolving "sandbox"security model -- server-side printing makes sense as a crafty workaround. A copy of each authoring application for which printing is desired must reside on the server. Hummingbird plans a client-side printing plugin, but it was not available in time for this review.  

The cost of collaborating

Document technology isn't lightweight. As mentioned above, that goes for system resources, and it will dent your budget as well. Common Ground Web Publisher 4.0 ships for $4995, including a license for a single server and five publishers. Additional publishing licenses are available for $129 per seat.

The price only seems steep by PC software standards. A second-generation Java document transport, Hummingbird's product makes high-fidelity electronic publishing remarkably affordable, especially when you take perks such the Java search engine and Bitstream font rendering into account.

An evaluation copy of Common Ground Web Publisher, which weighs in at around 17 MB, can be downloaded from Hummingbird's Web site.

The challenge for Hummingbird and its prospective customers is less a matter of technology than staying power. Late to market and only now beginning to make itself known, Common Ground Web Publisher has tougher challenges ahead than garnering reviewers' praise. For what it's worth, they have mine.