Step 2 - Understand LCDS' folders

If you are completely new to Adobe LiveCycle Data Services and Java application servers in general, I hope this might be a few guiding lights in the dark. What is a Java Application Server? Think of it as a web server (IIS if you like), but with lots of built in functionality, modules and library function that your "web pages" can use. LiveCycle Data Services (LCDS) is one such a library of functionality. In this turn-key installation of LCDS, we use Tomcat as the Java application server. So LCDS runs within Tomcat. Java application servers are basically folder and file based, and at first glance it is difficult to know what each folder is for and where to put your own applications. Where do I start? Where do I put my stuff? First the application server Tomcat:

C:\Adobe_lcds\tomcat	The root folder for Tomcat, your Java application server
C:\Adobe_lcds\tomcat\bin	Directories for Tomcat startup/shutdown scripts
C:\Adobe_lcds\tomcat\conf	Configuration files for Tomcat
C:\Adobe_lcds\tomcat\work	Hands off! Tomcat's own temp (working) folder
More info about Tomcat at Jajakarta.org

And now what we are interested in... LCDS:

C:\Adobe_lcds\tomcat\webapps	Root folder for LCDS.
C:\Adobe_lcds\tomcat\webapps\lcds-samples	Adobe's sample applications. http://localhost:8400/lcds-samples/
C:\Adobe_lcds\tomcat\webapps\lcds	Template folder for your own apps. Copy this, and create your own based on this template. Keep this unspoilt if you need to start from scratch. http://localhost:8400/lcds/
C:\Adobe_lcds\tomcat\webapps\ds-console	The console / status reports for the Adobe LiveCycle Data Services web applications. http://localhost:8400/ds-console/
More info about LiveCycle Data Services configuration at Adobe

Next we will look at the database sample that came with LCDS. [Main article] [Next] [Previous]