OT: FP on the Web

[Fairlight]

Confusious (Richard Tartaglia) say:
> I hope all is well with everyone.

Reasonably.  Within usual FUBAR parameters.  :)

> FP 5.0.14 Windows 5 user license

Noted.

> I have a client that wants to see their records on the web.  I wouldn't
> have to put the entire record up, but would have to do some processing.
>
> I don't have a clue where to start or if I even have the knowledge to do
> this.

If you can do a simple lookup, you can do it.

> My first question is, can someone, me, learn this and do it without a
> lot of problems. 2) If I am only using 3 computers in my office will my
> license allow me to let a client look at my files over the Internet.
> 3)Is there a program that I could purchase that would interface or help
> with the project.  4) Is there a good book out there that could guide me.

1) Yes.  Most assuredly.

2) My OneGate product will allow a max_session_count for the web
transactions.  If you set it to 2, only 2 sessions will ever be active
concurrently through OneGate.  It has a wait_interval and a wait_attempts,
both of which are configurable.  By default, for example, if two sessions
are active and another three are received, the three new sessions wait
until either wait_interval * wait_attempts is exceeded before giving an
error page (customizable), or they will each take the first available slot
in turn as the sessions finish and exit in turn.  In such a fashion you can
extend 2 seats of a license by a decent amount, given fast processing
that's in/out very quickly.  This kind of setup would ensure that 3 seats
were always available for your in-office use.

3) http://onegate.fairlite.com/ has full documentation for OneGate.
OneGate is the middleware between filePro and the web server process itself
(Apache or IIS, it's been tested and used in production with both).  You'll
need to do a little configuration, and you'll need to code the filePro side
of it to output whatever you want after doing a lookup to get the data upon
which your results are based.  If you have predesigned pages that you want
to dynamify (is that a word? is now...), you can import them with a utility
I generally give to OneGate licensees called html2prc (which is also
available separately, if anyone needs it).  This takes any file and makes
a CALLable prc table that will output the file from which it was created.
You basically quickly import the HTML, JavaScript, etc., into filePro with
that and make changes to only the parts that need to be dynamic with the
data.

4) Any good book on CGI would do.  Using something like OneGate is going
to get it down to just doing a lookup to get your data rather than doing a
lot of parsing and getting bogged down in technical specs, and of course
you'd be writing your output routines and business logic.  OneGate handles
(most of...I can't control what people do in processing) the security as
stringently as possible, and provides a flexible framework from which
you can perform an unlimited amount of discrete "tasks" (e.g., log in,
search for a record by 'x' field, search for a record by 'y' field,
etc., each being a separate task).  All tasks combined fall within the
max_session_count, so you can indeed limit all necessary tasks under one
global limit.  I do training for my product, it has extensive docs, and I
have source code and configuration examples that illustrate a full facility
I wrote (the file-sharing system that the fP-Room used to use before I lost
the resource of the filePro system on which it was hosted).

> I am not even sure where to start here. My knowledge of building a web
> sight is to cut and past into Yahoo Sight Builder. There will be very
> little traffic so I intend to use one of my desktops to act as the
> server.  My client may look at a file once or twice a day.

Sounds like 2 seats should be more than sufficient, especially given the
license-extending potential of the lock-retry mechanism I've implemented.

I've not used Yahoo Site Builder, but if it can save the HTML (or if we can
display the page and just View Source in the browser, then copy&paste to a
file), then even that method could be used to generate the web pages which
can then be imported into filePro.

Realise that you'll need a web server on the machine that serves as the
filePro server.  It can be firewalled, of course, if in-house browsers are
all that are being used.  If you're comfortable with putting a Windows
box directly on the net, unrestricted, you can do that if you're being
literal in saying you need it on the web proper.  However, extra security
is available if desirable and necessary for that scenario.  

With extra software that I also wrote, one can even segregate the filePro
server and a public web server, making one cohesive site in which the
filePro server may ONLY be accessed via firewall rules from the public
web server itself, and the software along the line seamlessly integrates
just the filePro bits into a standing web site on a public server.  That
server could be just on the other side of the router in the DMZ, it could
be halfway across the world.  The nice part is that it's also OS-agnostic,
so you can mix and match...could be a FBSD, Linux, Solaris, whatever server
publicly, with a Windows filePro server.  Could be all Windows servers.
Could be varying flavours of unix.  Doesn't matter.  I've made my wife's
Win2K system act as if I were directly browsing a Linux system up in New
York (I'm in Louisville).  Totally transparent.  You can make filePro a
part of an existing web site at a hosting service that would never allow
you to run it directly on their systems in this fashion, limiting the
direct access to the filePro system to -only- the server(s) that host your
public web presence.  How much you want to integrate it into any existing
site, and how much security is required determines if you need the full
monte of a OneBridge/OneGate bundle, or just OneGate itself.  But either is
certainly doable.

Perl is a necessary prerequisite for my software, but that's readily
available from ActiveState, not a problem.

> I trust this list so don't be frightened to comment just because I have
> guns.

And all I have with which to frighten people is a fading, acerbic wit and a
penchant for really bad puns.  I'm jealous!

mark->
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