Gong Startup Parameters

The Gong system can be used as a standalone system or together with other systems such as some Learning Management Systems. To be able to do that the Gong system provides a few convenient configurations to ease the process of the integration with different systems.

Automatic System Logon

The Gong system is one that relies on user authentication for applying access control on its discussion boards. Integration with other systems means the Gong system provides a way to simplify the logon process. i.e., the user should not need to explicitly log on the Gong system after logging on its parent system (the one integrated with the Gong system).

The Gong system allows the logon process to be skipped by giving appropriate parameters. In the case of running Gong as an application the parameters are stored in the gong.ini file. Or, in the case of applet the parameters are listed as the applet parameters. The following is an example of those parameters for a Gong applet (other parameters are omitted).

<applet name="gong" archive="gong.jar" code="gong.GongApplet">
  ...
  <param name="Info.Username" value="5p6D1jPdkng=" />
  <param name="Info.Password" value="Z12MqZB454Y=" />
  ...
</applet>

These logon parameters are encrypted in order to minimize any potential security problem.

At the moment, the Gong system uses its own set of user database. That means user information has to be duplicated from the parent system and put in the Gong system. This duplication of user data can be achieved by batch importing in the Gong administration module.

The parameter list can also include the selection of board and message and therefore there is no need for the user to select a board or a message after the system starts up.

System Color and Font Configuration

A good system should have a unified look and feel so that it looks comfortable to the users. If the Gong system is integrated with other systems the appearance of them can be unified by giving different parameters to the Gong system.

There are three parameters which can change the color scheme of the Gong program. They are System.Color, System.SecondaryColor and System.BackgroundColor. Color is expressed in the hexidecimal form of the red, green and blue component. Any combination of the red, green and blue values can be used to form a color. The following table gives some example colors and their corresponding values.

Apart from colors, different fonts can be used in the Gong system. By default Sans Serif is the font being used in the system. To change it, simply modify the System.ControlFont and the System.UserFont parameters with the desired font name ¹.

Proceed to see the examples »