ConsultComm Frequently Asked Questions

How do I backup/restore my personal settings?
Just archive the CsltComm directory from your user directory. When you need them again, just place it back in your user directory. See Important Directories You Might Need to Know to find out what your user directory is.

Nothing happens when I double-click on CsltComm.jar
Either a) the Java Runtime Environment isn't installed correctly or b) your file associations are incorrect. Try uninstalling and reinstalling the Java Runtime Environment and see if that helps. If not, trying invoking ConsultComm from the command line by using java -jar CsltComm.jar.

Why can't I set ConsultComm to pause after being idle for x seconds?
Currently only Microsoft® Windows® and Linux or other Unix variants running X Windows can detect how long a user session is idle under ConsultComm. I can support other platforms as well, but I would need someone to supply the source code to do so. If you're interested, visit http://sourceforge.net/projects/consultcomm/

If you are running ConsultComm on a supported platform but can't get idle time working, make sure you've download the correct installer package for your platform or that you've compiled the appropriate libraries when building from source.

I try to start up ConsultComm, but it keeps saying "Java API for XML Processing was not found."
You might get this if you are using the Java Runtime Environment earlier than 1.4 or if you haven't installed the Java XML libraries correctly. Download the Java XML API at http://java.sun.com/xml/download.html and install all of the .jar files that come with it into the Java Extensions directory on your computer (see Important Directories You Might Need to Know for the location of your extensions directory). If the JAR files aren't in the correct extensions directory, ConsultComm can't load.

Why the heck is this called "Consultant Communicator?"
That's an interesting story. Actually not so much interesting as it is long.
This application started out as a peer-to-peer instant messaging client. I thought it would be nice to have a lightweight IM app that wouldn't rely on a central server so I could coordinate with co-workers at our satellite office. I made a pretty crude version... then found myself needing a little application to keep track of the time I was spending on projects at work. So I whipped up a lil' panel to track projects as well. Turns out that people were much more interested in the time tracking portion of it than the IM portion of it. I had more requests for the project tracker and no interest whatsoever for the IM client. To quote the CVS entry from when I removed the instant messaging client code: Just 'cause you can write a chat client doesn't mean you should.
So now I've got an application that is called "Consultant Communicator" that doesn't do a heckuva lotta communication. But I kept the name since it was original, everyone already referred to it as "ConsultComm," and I don't want to have to think of another name. So now I just justify the name by saying "it allows project management and collaboration by using a standard application with a possible database backend." Or whatever.