------------------------------------------------------------ Visual dBASE Intranet Tools v1.1 README.TXT Issued 5/16/96 ------------------------------------------------------------ WHAT ARE VISUAL dBASE INTRANET TOOLS? ------------------------------------------------------------ Visual dBASE Intranet Tools provides a single solution for Visual dBASE customers looking to integrate databases with World Wide Web technology. The package is made up of two products: * Visual dBASE WebExperts, which allows you to point-and-click your way to dynamic CGI table-searching applications and easily transform tables into static HTML pages; and * DeltaPoint WebTools, which brings Visual dBASE users powerful class library utilities for interactive WWW database application development using CGI and HTML. WebTools includes: * An HTML Publishing Engine class, which provides HTML tag support over the entire library. * A custom WinCGI component class, which provides methods to assist in response file creation. * A full reference guide to classes, methods, and functions. * A complete set of publishing and CGI examples. With Visual dBASE Intranet Tools, any Xbase programmer can easily develop WWW database applications in simple Visual dBASE code. This represents a quantum leap in database information handling with respect to interactive web site applications. ------------------------------------------------------------ WHAT YOU NEED TO RUN WEBTOOLS ------------------------------------------------------------ The Getting Started instructions that follow assume three conditions: -- You have a full version of Visual dBASE for Windows on your machine, including the Visual dBASE Compiler; and -- You installed WebTools to the default directory (c:\webtools); and -- You are using WebSite by O'Reilly and Associates as your web server and the program is located at c:\website If you don't have all of the products named above, see the "Additional Information" section at the end of this readme. If you did not install WebTools in the default directory, simply substitute your installation directory where you see c:\webtools in the instructions below. ------------------------------------------------------------ GETTING STARTED: RUNNING THE DEMO APPS ------------------------------------------------------------ To run the demo applications included with WebTools: 1. Copy all of the files in the directory c:\webtools\samples\website\htdocs\wthtml to c:\website\htdocs 2. Copy all of the files in the root of directory c:\webtools\samples\website (.DBF, .DBT and .MDX files) to c:\website 3. Copy all of the .EXE files in the directory c:\webtools\samples\website\cgi-win to c:\website\cgi-win 4. Using Notepad or any other text editor, Edit the file c:\webtools\WEBTOOLS.H and change the email name and email address near the top of the file to your own name and email address. The two lines begin with #DEFINE wtEmailName and #DEFINE wtEmailAddress. Do not change the #DEFINE statements, only the information in the quote marks that follow them. When the information is changed, save the file. 5. Copy the edited file c:\webtools\WEBTOOLS.H to c:\visualdb\include 6. Run WebSite (c:\website\httpd32.exe) 7. Run the WebTools Server (c:\webtools\WTSERVER.EXE) 8. Open a web browser and type or copy the following into its URL locator: http://localhost/wt.htm ------------------------------------------------------------ GETTING STARTED: RUNNING A WEBEXPERT ------------------------------------------------------------ To use a Visual dBASE WebExpert: 1. Open Visual dBASE and switch the current working directory to the directory containing the WebExperts (installation default: c:\webtools\experts). 2. Choose Forms in the Navigator. 3. Double-click on SEARCH.WFO to run the Table Search WebExpert or PUBLISH.WFO to run the Table Publish WebExpert. ------------------------------------------------------------ GETTING HELP: ONLINE DOCUMENTATION ------------------------------------------------------------ Introductory WebTools information is provided in WEBTOOLS.HLP, located in your root WebTools directory (c:\webtools, if you accepted the default installation directory). Online Help for the Visual dBASE WebExperts is available from any screen in either WebExpert. You can also view the file on its own from the WebTools\Expert directory (installation default c:\webtools\expert). In addition, a complete WebTools function reference is available as a series of local web pages (.HTM files). The function reference set is located in your c:\webtools\docs directory (assuming you accepted the default installation directory). The contents page for the set is named WTDOCS.HTM. You can view any document in the set from any web browser. To view the contents page now, copy the following line into your browser's URL locator: c:\webtools\docs\wtdocs.htm then press Enter. ------------------------------------------------------------ LANGUAGE DRIVER ISSUES AND OPTIONS ------------------------------------------------------------ Visual dBASE Intranet Tools supports both the ANSI and OEM character sets. We strongly recommend, however, that you choose an ANSI language driver (instructions for changing drivers follow). The ANSI drivers closely match the ISO Latin 1 character set, which is the Internet standard set for Western European languages. If you use an OEM character set, any incoming Web data processed by applications created with Intranet Tools is automatically converted from Latin 1 to OEM. However, if the incoming Web data is not in the Latin 1 character set (if, for example, it uses the Latin 2 "Eastern European" character set), Intranet Tools will NOT convert the data correctly. Using an ANSI language driver eleminates the need for conversion and guarantees that any incoming non-Latin 1 extended characters will be displayed correctly. Another argument in favor of switching to an ANSI driver is that the Visual dBASE WebExperts create their program files in ANSI. If you're using an OEM character set and you open a WebExperts-created .PRG file, any extended characters will appear garbled. If you want to retain the OEM character set, you can work around the WebExperts character display issue by choosing Interpret Text as Windows Text in the Program Editor Properties dialog (Properties menu). To avoid the need for such workarounds and to easily resolve the other issues discussed above, you can choose an ANSI language driver by following these steps: 1. Open BDECFG.EXE (normally found in c:\idapi). 2. Choose the Drivers tab. 3. If it's not already selected, choose the dBASE driver in the Driver Name list. 4. In the Parameters table, choose the LANGDRIVER property. The field becomes a dropdown listbox. 5. Scroll through the list and choose a driver that supports the ANSI character set (these drivers should have "ANSI" as part of their name). 6. Choose Save from the File menu. 7. Close BDECFG.EXE. NOTE: To avoid problems when using the Visual dBASE WebExperts, don't mix global and table character sets. That is, if you choose an OEM language driver to generate a Table Search WebExpert program, the program should reference only tables that were created using the OEM character set. Also, no matter what character set you are using, you should use only non-extended characters for file names when saving files created with the WebExperts. ------------------------------------------------------------ ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ------------------------------------------------------------ ....... Servers All samples in this installation have been tested with the 32-bit WebSite 1.1 server for Windows. You can download an evaluation version of Website 1.1 from: http://website.ora.com (WebSite 1.1, 32-bit for Win95 & WinNT ONLY) If you are running on a 16-bit platform, you can obtain an evaluation version of a 16-bit Windows web server from: http://www.city.net/win-httpd (Win-HTTPD 1.4, 16-bit for Win 3.x and Windows for Workgroups ONLY) ------------------------------------------------------------ Copyright 1996, Borland International, Inc. Copyright 1995, 1996 DeltaPoint, Inc.