EnMasse

EnMasse is a formatting server. It accepts documents locally or other the network and formats them with high throughput. Customers are those who print or deliver electronically customized documents in high volumes and various formats. The user installs the server and uses it with simple command-line or interactive tools. The users may but won't have to write code to use the server in their workflow.

It is a potentially distributed solution, which consists of

· several XEP Engines, run locally and remotely, with simple monitoring interface over http (a tiny http server is embedded into each engine);

· XEP Access Point, a hub that accepts formatting queries and returns results using either hot folder or service-based interface.

The user either runs XEP AcessPoint as a separate application (serving network requests or monitoring folders) or embeds it into their code. EnMasse's current implementation is written in Java and Python. It runs on most modern computer platforms and operating systems, including various Unixes, Microsoft Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and Plan 9. A simple and flexible sockets-based protocol allows programs in any language to easily connect to EnMasse, thus eliminating limitations imposed by any single environment.

Application: Bank

The bank prints statements, bills, invoices, personalized letters in high volume, uses a WYSIWYG or XML editor to design forms, a relational database to manipulate data, their own application to merge the forms and the data, and then needs a high performance formatting solution.

EnMasse Actinia, an 'active folder' application, monitors the input folder, picks up documents in XSL FO, and puts formatted documents in PDF or PostScript into the printer queue.

Application: Documentation Team

A small office with several authors. The authors use an XML editor to create and edit documents and need a high‒performance formatting server to generate previews.

The office uses EnMasse Toaster, the formatting service, which accepts requests other the local network via a simple network protocol, and sends back formatted documents in PDF or PostScript. The user's workstation then displays the formatted document.