Media

ThingWorx Model Definition in Composer > Visualization > Media

Media

Media entities can be locally-stored media artifacts or dynamic content used in your ThingWorx application implementation. In most cases, these include images and icons used for entities such as menus, style definitions, and mashups. Locally-stored media entities support JPEG, PNG, and BMP image types. To use other file types, refer to them as dynamic content and modify the supportedMediaEntityContentTypes parameter in the platform-settings.json file to include the desired MIME-type.

General Information

The following fields define media entities:

• Name

Required field

• Description

Optional field to describe the entity

• Project

The collection of objects to which this media entity belongs

• Tags

Optional field to include any applicable tags

• Image

Locally-stored image used by the media entity

• Last Modified Date

Date and time of the last edit

Configuration

Use Existing Flow Configuration

You can use ThingWorx Flow connectors to access third-party services directly by providing configuration details under the Use Existing Flow Configuration section. If you choose to use an existing ThingWorx Flow configuration, you do not need to specify any values under the Content Source Connection Information, Authorization Server Scopes Settings, SSL Connection Configuration and Session User Configuration sections.
Name	Default Value	Notes
Connector Name	-	Specify the ThingWorx Flow connector name. Set this property when you want to access ThingWorx Flow through media entities.
Ignore SSL Errors	not selected/false	Select this property to ignore any SSL errors, such as those for self-signed certificates, encountered when accessing the URL. To support two-way Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) authentication in ThingWorx 8.0.7, 8.1.3, and 8.2.1 or later, you can use the SSL Connection Configuration settings below.

Content Source Connection Information

Name

Default Value

Notes

Dynamic Content

not selected/false

Select this property to use dynamic content. If it is not selected, the media entity uses content stored on the ThingWorx server.

URL

The URL to the dynamic content upstream origin server. This can be a full URL to a specific file or a base URL to a server where the content is stored. For single sign-on (SSO), enter a URL that supports OAuth. For more information about base URL usage, see the GetProxyUrl sections in the Media Entity Service Methods topic.

Ignore SSL Errors

not selected/false

Select this property to ignore any SSL errors, such as those for self-signed certificates, encountered when accessing the URL.

To support two-way Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) authentication, you can use the SSL Connection Configuration settings below.

Timeout

The wait time, in seconds, for a response from the origin server specified in the URL. If the origin server does not respond within this amount of time, the request fails.

Authentication Type

none

The authentication required by the origin server specified in the URL. The options are the following

• none: No authentication is required. This is the default setting.

• basic: If the content resides on a server that requires basic authentication, select this option. If selected, the Username and Password properties are used to authenticate with the server.

One system account is used to access the origin server for each media entity.

• SSO (single sign-on):

◦ For information on SSO, see ThingWorx Single Sign-on Capabilities

◦ For more information on Troubleshooting Dynamic Content SSO Authentication, see Troubleshooting Dynamic Content SSO Authentication.

• Session User:

Select this option to support authentication of user accounts without using SSO. When this option is selected, you must provide a Session User Query Parameter below, which will be sent as a query parameter in content proxy requests.

Username

Username for basic authentication. This property is always displayed even though it is only used when basic is selected as the Authentication Type.

One system account is used to access the origin server for each media entity.

Password

Password for basic authentication. This property is always displayed even though it is only used when basic is selected as the Authentication Type.

Authorization Server ID

This setting is for the single sign-on (SSO) authentication type only. Enter the ID of the authorization server to which you want to connect. The ID is assigned by a server administrator when ThingWorx is configured for SSO authentication. To retrieve this value, refer to the <authServerId> variable used by the authServerId.clientID setting in the sso-settings.json file where ThingWorx is installed. You may need to contact your Apache Tomcat server administrator to request the authorization server ID. For more information, see Configure sso-settings.json File.

Test Connection URL

URL used to validate your media entity configuration. If the media entity configuration is invalid when trying to save, a connection error message appears. An administrator must fix the configuration and save. If you are importing or performing an in place migration of an invalid media entity configuration, an error message is recorded in the Application Log, the Dynamic Content flag for the media entity is set to false, and the import or in place migration continues. An administrator must then fix the configuration, including resetting the Dynamic Content flag to true.

For example, the following URLs can be used to test the proxy to a Windchill server based on the Authentication Type:

• basic: https://HOST/Windchill/servlet/WindchillAuthGW/wt.httpgw.HTTPServer/echo

• SSO: https://HOST/Windchill/oauth/servlet/WindchillAuthGW/wt.httpgw.HTTPServer/echo

• Session User: https://HOST/Windchill/sslClientAuth/servlet/WindchillAuthGW/wt.httpgw.HTTPServer/echo

Headers To Forward on POSTs

This value is always displayed even though it is only used on dynamic content accessed with POST requests. Value must be a comma-separated list of header names. When this entity receives an HTTP POST request, the chosen headers and values will be copied from the ThingWorx request onto the request to the dynamic content’s URL.

Validate Browser Cache With the Server

not selected/false

To improve performance, ThingWorx caches Media Entitles. When Dynamic Content is selected or is true, Media entities are fetched from server. When modifying Dynamic Content, set this checkbox to true and perform hard refresh of Media Entities.

For information on performing a hard refresh, check the help of your internet browser.

Authorization Server Scopes Settings

These settings are for SSO (single sign-on) authentication type only.

Enter scope names exactly as they appear in the authorization server. These scopes are defined on the resource provider and registered on the authorization server. For more information, see Working With Scopes.

SSL Connection Configuration

If the Ignore SSL Errors setting (described above) is selected/true or the following configuration settings are defined, SSL context must be used when executing all proxy requests for the media entity. This configuration enables two-way SSL authentication or the exchange of certificates.

Name	Notes
SSL Key Store Path	The path to your certificates.
SSL Key Store Password	The password to the key store file/your certificates.
SSL Trust Store Path	The path to trusted certificates from Certificate Authorities (CA) or others’ credentials.
SSL Trust Store Password	The password to the trust store file/others’ certificates.

Session User Configuration

This configuration is required when the Authentication Type is set to Session User.

Name	Default Value	Notes
Session User Query Parameter		When the Authentication Type is set to Session User, you must enter a Session User Query Parameter. This value and the logged in session user ID are sent as query parameters in content proxy requests. For example, you could sent wt.effectiveUid to Windchill with content proxy requests.