Rules Manager Node

The Rules Manager is the main interface for creating, editing and managing evaluation criteria to determine which websites are rendered using Ion Profile instead of the default Internet Explorer settings. This section provides details on the various elements of this interface.

The Content Pane shows the hierarchical rules list that Ion uses to determine how to handle web application rendering. The Url To Test box allows administrators an easy way to enter a given Url and see which Rule will be triggered by the value. The heading for each column in this window refers to the specific rule element (e.g. Rule Name, Match Method, Value, Profile) for a given rule. Use the Actions Pane to work with rules using the ‘Add’, ‘Edit’, ‘Delete’, ‘Copy’, ‘Cut’ and ‘Paste’ items. The Actions Pane also contains the ‘Move Up’ and ‘Move Down’ items for re-ordering rules.

Add Rule - To create a new rule, click the Add Rule link in the Actions Pane to bring up the Rule Editor window. By default, the rule will be added at the bottom of the list in Rules Manager. If you first select a rule in Rules Manager, the new rule will be added immediately below the selected rule. See the description of the Move Rule Up/Move Rule Down feature for more information on rule order. The Rule Editor section provides details on the options and values in the Rule Editor window. See the How to Create a Rule section for details on creating rules.

Edit Rule - URLs and rule definitions can be complex, and complexity may lead to typographical errors. In the event you make a mistake or need to revise a rule, simply double click the line to edit (or highlight the line and click the Edit Rule link in the Actions Pane) to make the necessary changes.

Delete Rule - To delete a rule, select it from the Rules Manager Window, then click the Delete Rule link in the Actions Pane. To disable a rule, rather than remove it, uncheck the Enable checkbox.

Copy — To copy a rule, select the item from the Rules Manager Window and click the Copy item in the Actions Pane.

Cut - To cut a rule (which copies the item to the clipboard rather than delete it entirely), select the item from the Rules Manager window and click the Cut item in the Actions Pane.

Paste — The Paste item in the Actions Pane can be used to paste items from the clipboard to the currently loaded, active project. For example, you can Copy/Paste items within a single project or Copy from one project and Paste into another.

Move Rule Up/Move Rule Down - Rules are evaluated in the order they are stored, so the sequence of rules can be critical to the proper functionality of your web applications in Ion. By default, rules are ordered in the sequence they are added. You can override this default by selecting a rule in Rules Manager prior to adding a new one. The new rule will be added immediately below the selected rule. To manually adjust the order of a rule, simply highlight the rule and use the Move Up and Move Down actions to move it to the proper placement.

Rules for Global Java Profiles are always evaluated in order from top to bottom after rules for all full Profiles, regardless of the order displayed in Rules Manager.

Rule Editor

The Rule Editor window is used for creating new rules or editing existing rules.

Rule Name — You can name a rule using any characters without restriction or character count limit. Rule names are for your use and identification only, and have no impact on functionality. Browsium recommends using rule names that clearly describe what the rule is used for, so it can be easily identified in the Rules Manager display.

Description — Allows for a more complete explanation of the purpose of the rule.

Enable (checkbox) — All rules are enabled by default when created. Some rules may contain complex parameters or complex paths and it may be more practical to simply disable a rule rather than remove it if the rule is not needed or to test ordering behaviors, etc. In addition, some users may choose to keep only a single rule set and want to disable a specific rule for some given period of time. To disable a rule, click the checkbox to remove the check or click the checkbox next to the Rule Name in the Rules Manager.

Match Method — Most rules require a simple pattern match of the FQDN in order to trigger Ion to manage the web application experience and load the required Profile. Some complex URL configurations require advanced pattern matching techniques, so Ion provides the ability to match based on the entire Url (including path and query string) as well as matching on regular expressions (RegEx) if needed. You may also use Zone as the match method so that rules are triggered based on the Internet Explorer Zone of the target web application.

When creating a new Rule, the Match Method is not visible at first. A Profile must be selected before the Match Method dropdown will appear. If the Profile selected is a Global Java Profile, the Match Method dropdown will only display ‘Limited Java’ as there are no complex match operations available for Global Java Profiles.

For Limited Java, Ion performs case-insensitive matches of the content in the Value field on the URLs based on the components of the URL as specified in Oracle’s Deployment Rule Set documentation. Browsium-recommended syntax can be found in the next section below the description of the Value field.

Global Java Profiles require a special Limited Java Match Method. Limited Java is the only Match Method option available when a Global Java Profile is selected in the Profile setting.

Rules can be set to trigger based on following types of pattern matching. The first four options are available for full Profiles. Global Java is the only option for Global Java Profiles.

Simple — Host Name Only (default): Performs case-insensitive, substring matches on the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN). E.g., will match “example” in http://www.example.com.

Simple — Full Url: Performs case-insensitive, substring matches on the entire Url including subpath AND query string.

RegEx: Performs complex matching using regular expressions. Be careful to escape special characters such as periods.

Starts With: Performs case-insensitive, ‘starts with’ string matches. If provided, the protocols must exactly match. (e.g., http://www.example.com will not match https://www.example.com)

Zone: Matches URLs that are in specified zones.

Value — This field contains the string to conditionally match for the selected Ion Profile to be invoked. If Match Method is set to Zone, the Value field will change to a dropdown menu containing Computer, Internet, Local Intranet, Restricted Sites, and Trusted Sites.

The Value field for a Global Java Match Method performs case-insensitive matches on the URLs based on the type of the URL.

Hostname Only (Intranet): If the Value does not have a period (.) in the string, contents of the Value will be matched with the hosts. Use of * (wild card) to do a substring match on hostnames is not permitted. For example, the Value browsiumintranet will match http://browsiumintranet, https://browsiumintranet/hr but will not match http://www.browsiumintranet.com.

Hosts with Domain: If the Value has a period (.) in the string, contents of the Value will be matched to the domain in the URL. * (Wild card) can be used to match all the hosts on that particular domain. For example, the Value *.browsium.com will match http://www.browsium.com/ion, http://ion.browsium.com and http://browsium.com.

Path Matches: Optionally, the Value can also specify a path in the URL. In that case, contents of the Value will be matched to the beginning of the path. Use of * (wild card) is not permitted to match the path. For example, the Value *.browsium.com/ion will match http://www.browsium.com/ion and http://www.browsium.com/ion/test but will not match http://www.browsium.com/iontest or http://www.browsium.com/test.

Port Numbers: Optionally, the Value can also specify the port numbers. For example, the Value browsiumintranet:8081 will match http://browsiumintranet:8081 and will not match https://browsiumintranet:8080.

Protocols: Optionally, the Value can also specify the protocols. For example, the Value https://www.browsium.com or https://browsiumintranet will not match http://www.browsium.com or http://browsiumIntranet.

Profile — The Profile selection determines which Ion Profile is used for the matching website. Any configured Profiles will be listed in this dropdown. In a default configuration, there are no Profiles available. To change the Profile used for a given rule, simply change the value in this field and save the project.

Copy a Rule

Creating rules is fast and easy, but some customers have demonstrated the need to create nearly identical rules for several related sites. For example, your organization may have a development, test and production version of the same system. Each of those systems have unique hostnames, but the URL string is identical beyond that. Ion includes the ability to copy/paste a rule to quickly duplicate it rather than having to create it from scratch again and again.

The process is simple. Just select the rule you need, click the ‘Copy’ option in the Actions pane and then ‘Paste’ to add a duplicate entry into the Rules Manager. Pasted rules will be appended to the end of the existing rules list so you may need to re-order rules when you’ve finished copying the needed rules. Rules can be re-ordered by simply selecting the rule and using the Move Up or Move Down options in the Actions Pane.

Ion Configuration Manager uses both the Copy and Paste steps, rather than a single ‘Duplicate’ option since the process is designed to be the same for copying within a project as well as across multiple projects. A single instance of Ion Configuration Manager can only load one project file at a time, so working with two project files requires loading each in a unique Ion Configuration Manager instance. For example, if your organization has separate projects for different business units and deploys configurations based on OU membership, copying Profile and rule settings between configurations is easy. Just open each project file in its own Ion Configuration Manager, select the item you want, hit Copy and switch to the target project file and hit Paste.

Remove a Rule

Rules are easily removed using the Browsium Ion Configuration Manager when they’re no longer needed. This feature is best shown by example. In this example, assume we have taken the needed steps to mitigate the compatibility issues with the web application running on www.aggrid.com, so we no longer need to render the site using Ion.

You can remove a rule by following these steps:

1. Open Ion Configuration Manager and open the project containing the rule you want to remove, or simply double-click on the project file (*.bcx) in Windows Explorer.

2. With the project open, click the Rules Manager node to bring up the ordered list of rules. Select the rule you wish to remove from the list of rules.

3. Click the Delete Rule in the Actions pane.

Remember to save the configuration using the File menu (either using Save, Save As, or Start Test Configuration) before closing Ion Configuration Manager to ensure the deleted rule is removed from your configuration.

[]{#_The_Settings_Node .anchor}