WebRAD : building database applications on the Web with Visual FoxPro and Web Connection / Harold Chattaway, Randy Pearson, Whil Hentzen; edited by Barbara Peisch.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Chattaway, Harold.

Contributor:

Pearson, Randy.

Hentzen, Whil.

Peisch, Barbara.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Visual FoxPro for Windows.

Web site development.

Database management.

Application software--Development.

Application software.

Physical Description:

xxvi, 528 p.

Place of Publication:

Whitefish Bay, Wis. : Hentzenwerke Publishing, c2002.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

A tutorial for novices and a reference for experienced users, featuring step-by-step guidelines for using Web Connection in a day-to-day manner as a developer, this book offers several development alternatives based on the user's style. Demonstrated are the building of two different applications, o

Contents:

Intro

Our Contract with You, The Reader

List of Chapters

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

About the Authors

How to Download the Files

Chapter 1: Introduction

Who should be reading this book?

Chapter 2: What is Web Connection?

What Web Connection is not

Updates

Conclusion

Chapter 3: Installing, Configuring, and Testing Web Connection

Installation

How it all works

Setting up Windows

Installing a Web server

Installing Visual FoxPro

Installing Web Connection

Testing your Web Connection installation

Running Web Connection

What's installed, and where

\wconnect

\inetpub\wwwroot\wconnect

Drive C

How Web Connection works inside

When something goes wrong

Authentication dialog appears

Nothing happens when clicking on a WC.DLL link

Web Connection error message displays

Save As/Download dialog

Cannot update the server

Chapter 4: Your First Web Connection Application

This chapter's sample application

A review of your directory structure

Creating your project

Moving your project

Testing your project

Optimizing your development environment-just a bit

EXE shortcut

Running your Web Connection server inside VFP

HTML page shortcut

Help file shortcuts

Opening up and adding code to the project

Accessing static (non-Web Connection) files

Referencing static files

Setting up static files

Running your app

Accessing data

Setting up your database

Opening your database

Presenting parameter selections to the user

Digging data out of your database

Updating your database

Using script maps instead of calls to WC.DLL

Script map syntax

Benefits to script maps

Deploying your application to a live Web server

Setting up your live Web server directory structure.

Getting your application's files to the server

Administering your live Web server

Chapter 5: How the Internet Works

IP addressing-how Internet servers find each other

What makes up a domain name? (How humans talk to the Internet)

Protocol

Host name

Second-level domain

Top-level domain

How to register your domain name

How does the world know where my site is located?

Routers

PING

Trace routes

Chapter resources

Chapter 6: Complete Web Development Environment

Development machine

IIS on Windows 2000 Professional

WS-FTP

WinZip

HTML authoring tools

Chapter 7: Server Hardware and Hosting

Memory

Processors

Hard drives

RAID drives

NIC cards

Hosting options

Do-it-yourself hosting

Shared, co-location, managed co-location, or dedicated?

Physical facilities

Racks

Power

Connectivity

Redundancy

Service-Level Agreements (SLAs)

IP addresses

Other services

Chapter 8: Configuring Server Software

Installing Windows 2000 Server

Connecting the development and server machines for testing

Installing the Visual FoxPro Runtime

Setting up Internet Information Server (IIS)

Binding IP addresses to the server

Creating a new Web site

Setting Web site permissions

Setting directory-level permissions

Setting up FTP access

FTP permissions

Virtual FTP directories

Securing your Web server

Some important things to be aware of

Auto-restart of IIS

Custom error messages

Performance Monitor

Visual FoxPro utilities

Chapter 9: How a Web Page Works

A brief history of HTML

The editor interface

The example "TODO" application.

Different techniques for generating a page

The TODO sample application

How is this Web page rendered?

What makes up a Web page?

The header section of an HTML page

The &lt

BODY&gt

section of an HTML page

Give your page some &lt

FORM&gt

Scripting the Web page

Why use client-side scripting?

Okay, so how do I do simple form validations?

JavaScript caution

JavaScript libraries

Style sheets: Why you need them

How style sheets are structured

So how do style sheets "cascade"?

Finally…

Chapter 10: Getting in Tune: Overcoming Conceptual Hurdles

Concept 1: How the machine works-just the basics

File-based messaging-the complete sequence

COM messaging-what's the difference?

Concept 2: Why is there a C++ DLL and where does my VFP EXE fit in?

Concept 3: The stateless nature of the Web

Concept 4: Passing "parameters" between Web pages

URL parameters

Form variables

Session variables

Concept 5: Request, Response, Session… Oh, my!

Concept 6: One Visual FoxPro instance-multiple users served

Concept 7: Multiple Visual FoxPro instances-one user served

Concept 8: Web forms are not Windows forms!

Basic attributes of desktop forms

Basics of a Web form

Structure of a Web form

Two or more forms on one Web page

Ensuring forms get submitted

Relating form elements to data-single record case

Relating form elements to data-multiple record case

Check box and radio button differences

Concept 9: Validating user input

Validation tips on certain Visual FoxPro data types

Concept 10: Templates vs. scripts-huh?

Visual FoxPro 7 gives us another option

For the curious: How templates and scripts work

Chapter 11: Managing Your Configuration

Configuration file overview.

Why not just one configuration file?

Inside the WC.INI file

Inside your application INI file

Introducing the configuration object

Built-in application INI file settings

Adding a main INI setting

Typical process INI settings

Adding a process INI setting

How the INI files are initially created

How and when the INI files settings are read

How to read and use INI settings in your application

Reading settings from WC.INI

How to change INI settings on production applications

When things go wrong

Chapter 12: A Web Connection Application from Start to Finish

The "TODO" sample application

Setting up the Visual FoxPro work space

WebRadX

WebRadInsert (WRI)

WebRadUpdate (WRU)

WebRadRequest (WRR)

GENHTMLFORM

HEADER

Macro to reset environment

TODO application feature set

Class hierarchy

Ya wanna know a secret?

Class management

Configuring the TODO project

Directory structure

Setting up script mapping

How TODO's first method is created

Using the CONFIG object

Keeping track of the users

Table structures

The first data request

Login routine

Reestablishing state

The need for a "Query Engine"

Using an HTML page template

Displaying the task list using a script page

When is an extension just an extension?

Pros and cons of scripts and templates

Single instance, single-user. Multiple instances, multi-user!

Seeing it for yourself!

Adding a TODO item

Saving a TODO item

Cleaning up after yourself

Extending the framework with a DEBUG class

DEBUGCLASS admin page

Administration Web page

The Web Connection administration page

Running as a COM server

Transferring the TODO application to the server

Configuring the server for "autostart"

Overcoming the "Access Denied" error when running as a COM server.

Additional TODO features

Don't forget the RADWizard!

Chapter 13: Identifying Users and Managing Session Data

The basics

What is user tracking?

What is user identification?

The four basic methods

Authentication

Authentication and the end-user experience

Pros and cons of authentication

Temporary cookies

Ensuring your cookie gets delivered

Temporary cookies and the end-user experience

Pros and cons of temporary cookies

Persistent cookies

Persistent cookies and the end-user experience

License plates

Pros and cons of license plates

Implementing a license plate strategy

Managing session state

Deploying the Session object

Putting the Session object to work

Implementing user logins

Advanced topics

Using Microsoft SQL Server to store session data

Combining methods in a single application

Chapter 14: COM vs. File-Based Messaging

Overview of COM and file-based messaging

Why move to COM?

COM principles

Converting to COM: Step-by-step

A staging server

Testing on the development system

Deploying COM on the production server

Troubleshooting COM

"Access Denied" errors under COM

Trouble releasing COM servers

The wcErrors.TXT file

Switching from COM back to file-based messaging

Sticking with file-based messaging

Improving file-based performance

Scaling with COM and file-based messaging

Adding instances on the Web server

Sharing the load with additional network machines

Moving data to a different back end

Scaling to a Web farm

Additional physical separation of tiers

A final word: Know your enemy

Resources

Chapter 15: Data Entry on the Web

Motivation

Design alternatives

Design attributes

Exploring the alternatives

Hand-coded forms.

Hand-coding plus scripts.

Notes:

Title from title screen.

Includes index.

Digitized and made available by: Books 24x7.com.

ISBN:

1-930919-29-8

OCLC:

70070276