Chapter 8. User clients 189
Depending on the data that you are working with, consider these options:
/SM590000For Line Data:
– The line data applet supports annotations. It can work with large object (LOB) reports if 
the large object functionality is employed at load time. 
– The Ajax viewer and direct rendering capa bilities of Content Navigator work only on 
shorter reports. Additionally, the viewing of annotations and large object documents is 
not supported.
/SM590000For AFP data:
– The AFP plug-in is the best choice, because it is almost identical to the client. However, 
it does not support annotations. 
The only viewers that use this functionality are the line data applet, the AFP plug-in 
viewer, and the Content Manager OnDemand Windows client.
– AFP to PDF is a choice that does not require a plug-in rollout at the users’ computers if 
the Acrobat plug-in is installed on their workstations. Font mappings must be 
configured at a central location. The additional workload on a rendering system and 
additional license costs must be considered. Large reports might not be able to be 
rendered or viewed.
Annotations
Only the native ODWEK viewers and the Windows client support annotations. These viewers 
and Windows clients support annotations in the following ways:
/SM590000Line data applet: Supports text. Starting with version 9, the viewer can work with graphical 
annotations, also. 
/SM590000Windows Client: Supports maximum capabilities for all data types.
/SM590000Other viewers, for example, the AFP plug-in viewer: Do not support and are not aware of 
annotations.
Web clients, such as Content Navigator or the ODWEK Java API, can work with annotations 
and provide access to them through the hit list. Graphical annotations cannot be accessed 
that way because they are not exposed through the Java API.
Large object support
Large object (LOB) support is the methodology for working with large reports. For more 
information about how LOB affects your reports, see “Large object” on page 52.
From a viewer’s perspective, if a large document is transferred, it generates high network 
traffic, resource consumption, and long wait times for users. If the viewer supports LOB 
documents, the viewer communicates with the server to transfer only the chunk of data that 
the user is looking at (for example, a 200 page chunk out of a 10,000 page report). If the user 
scrolls to a different chunk of pages, the viewer downloads only that relevant portion of the 
document that the user scrolled to. 
Note: The AFP viewer plug-in, which is available with ODWEK and Content 
Manager OnDemand, is a version of the AFP viewer plug-in from the InfoPrint 
Solutions Company. Although the standard InfoPrint viewer can be used for viewing 
AFP , the ODWEK version uses direct communication with the Content Manager 
OnDemand server, enabling segmented document transfer for LOB documents.