WebSite Professional Server Self Test

Server Self-Test & Demonstration
Information Retrieval

15-September-97
This first section tests and demonstrates the WebSite Pro server's information retrieval capabilities:

Basic Document Retrieval

This is the most basic, yet most often used, function that your server provides. When the user clicks a link, the browser sends a request to the server and the server returns the requested document.

Here is a plain text document
Here is a hypertext document
Here is a JPEG image (Bob Denny on Cotton)
Here is an audio clip
You can also use an image as a link.


Directory Listing and File Retrieval

Look here first

This feature permits the server to display directories visible on your computer and lets Web users browse and retrieve files. In addition, as server administrator, you can create text descriptions for files to assist your users in identifying and locating files. You can look at this feature as a type of FTP. It does not use the FTP protocol; it uses the Web's own HTTP for file transfers, which are limited to downloads (you can upload files via WSAPI and CGI).

This demo includes a small directory tree with some useless documents in it. Have a look and you'll get the idea. Clicking the Parent Directory entry at the top of the demo tree will take you back to this demo document.

HTML-3 Table Support

WebSite Pro's directory listing format uses the HTML-3 table feature. This produces a much nicer looking listing, but it will be unusable by people without table-aware browsers. You can offer the older fixed-pitch format by including a link in the directory header with ?plain appended to the directory URL. If a directory listing does not have a header, WebSite Pro puts a link for changing listing format at the top.

Here is the above sample directory tree in fixed-pitch format. Note that, once the server sees you use the ?plain argument, it will construct parent- and sub-directory links with this argument appended, preserving the fixed-pitch mode.

If you feel that most of your users do not have browsers that handle HTML-3 tables, you can tell the server to default to using fixed-pitch for its directory listings. Turn off the Use HTML3 tables switch on the Dir Listing tab of the server's property sheet. WebSite Pro ships with this switch enabled.

Disabling Directory Browsing

There are two ways that you can disable directory browsing: server-wide and path-specific. The Dir Listing page of the server's property sheet has a checkbox to disable directory browsing server-wide. You can also create an access-control path on the Access Control page of the server's property sheet and check Disable directory listings. This action prevents directory browsing on that path and its children.

Here is a directory that has been protected against browsing with access control.


Clickable Image Maps

The server has the built-in ability to process clicks within an inline image and perform actions based on the location of the click. This is called image map support. With it, for example, you can create a graphical map of a complex set of Web pages and let your users navigate visually. Obviously, you can do many other clever things with image maps.

Here is an inline GIF image. Click in it and see what happens. If you get an error message, your server is not running, or you are reading this as a file. Try this link to see if your local server is running.

TEST

In contrast to most other known Web servers, this server does not require running an external program to handle image map requests. The support is built into the server, which makes the server very efficient at handling image mapping.

Image Map Data

Using MapThis!, the image map editor that comes with WebSite Pro, you can graphically create the hotspots against a background of the image you want to map. This mapping information is stored in an image map file, which the server uses to determine what to do depending on where you click. The HTML used in the sample above is:

<A HREF="32demo.map">
<IMG SRC="images/imapdemo.gif" ISMAP WIDTH=300 HEIGHT=100>
</A>

The 32demo.map is the name of the map file. When WebSite Pro sees a filename ending in .map it assumes that the file contains NCSA-format image mapping data. This activates the server's special built-in image mapper. WebSite Pro reads the map file and uses the data in it to decide what to do. You can open the map with MapThis! and see the regions as they were defined, along with their target URLs (right-click a region). You may have to locate the background image yourself (one time only) after installing WebSite Pro. Here is the image mapping data for the example above:

default /~wsdocs/32demo/noshape.html
ellipse /~wsdocs/32demo/circle.html 8,9 90,89
poly /~wsdocs/32demo/poly.html 250,10 212,90 290,90 250,10
rect /~wsdocs/32demo/rect.html 130,10 171,91

WebSite Pro uses standard NCSA-format image map files. You can put your map files in the same directory as the documents that use them.

The following example uses an image map file self-test.map.

Note that the NCSA image map format supports the point element, in which a click outside any geometric region resolves to the nearest point. The presence of one or more point elements bypasses any background (default) element. The ellipse region is unique to WebSite Pro. Most other imagemappers support only circles.

The HTML used in this sample is:

<A HREF="/~wsdocs/32demo/self-test.map">
<IMG SRC="images/file-imap.gif" ISMAP>
</a>

and the contents of self-test.map are:

ellipse /~wsdocs/32demo/ellipse.html 50,12 170,54
point /~wsdocs/32demo/ptleft.html 24,34
point /~wsdocs/32demo/ptright.html 194,34

The Two Ways to Code Image Maps in HTML

Actually, there are two ways to code image maps in HTML. The traditional way is to use the ISMAP element within an image tag, then enclose it with a link to the image mapper. The above examples use this method.

You can also make an image map by using an obscure but useful feature of HTML forms. Create an input field of type IMAGE within a form whose execution target is the image mapper. Forms can use either the GET or POST method, but file-based image maps require using GET. An example, along with the actual HTML used, appears below.

<FORM METHOD="GET" ACTION="32demo2.map">
<INPUT TYPE=IMAGE SRC="/~wsdocs/32demo/images/imapdemo.gif">
</FORM>

NOTE: WebSite Pro and MapThis! also support client-side image maps in which the coordinates and URLs are stored in an HTML file and processed by the browser. Not all browsers support client-side image maps. See Chapter 7 of Mastering the Elements


Server-side Includes

Test Page Here

WebSite Pro supports the powerful Server-Side Include (SSI) feature for easily adding dynamic content to HTML documents.

NOTE: WebSite Pro's unique built-in SSI support for page counters eliminates the need for CGI-based page counter packages completely.

This document demonstrates and tests WebSite Pro's SSI facilities. See Chapter 3 of Creating Dynamic Content for details on the features and syntax for using SSI.


Automatic URL-Fixup

This section checks out a vital feature of your server -- its ability to fix up directory URLs that don't have a trailing slash. Don't bother to try to understand why this is needed for now. Look at the URL that is displayed at the top of your browser. It ends either with st-info.html or with a trailing slash. Click the link below. If the top document is successfully redisplayed, the feature is working. If you get an error, your hostname is not configured correctly. Use the Identities page of the server's property sheet to correct your hostname and then try this test again. Try it now:

/~wsdocs/32demo  <-- missing trailing slash

Now look at the displayed current URL. It should have a trailing slash on it, and it also has the port number after the host name if your server is running on a port other than 80 (the HTTP default).


Serving Java Applets (Java-enabled browser required)

WebSite Pro is ready to serve Java applets. The URL /java/ is mapped to the directory WebSite\java\, and under the applets subdirectory are three samples. You can add additional Java applets to your site by creating additional subdirectories under java\applets\.

Java Samples: (Press the back button on your browser to return here)


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