This chapter is central to the whole book. You can shape your entire Web site around either of the two excellent Web servers that we are about to install. By the end of this chapter you will have your very own home page running on the World Wide Web.
Purveyor Desktop is a professional Web server with code inherited from the popular Process Software Web server for Windows NT. FolkWeb is a relative newcomer, but it too offers a professional and deep feature set that includes security. Evaluation
versions of both of these products are on the accompanying CD-ROM.
Decompress the file PURVEYOR.ZIP from the CD-ROM to the \TEMP directory (or any chosen directory, preferably one that is otherwise empty) on your hard drive. From there, you can run SETUP.EXE and follow the questions on screen during the installation.
Double-clicking SETUP.EXE is now considered the old way to run setup programs. There is a new convention for installing software applications that Microsoft has built into Windows 95. The new way involves choosing Control Panel from the Start menu and then
selecting Add/Delete Programs. This runs a wizard, and you can browse for the location of the SETUP.EXE file. In most cases, it doesn't make much difference which method you choose. But future setup programs may come to rely on this new method.
Purveyor Setup prompts you to enter the following:
Process Software Corporation also distributes Purveyor over the Internet (http://www.process.com). If you received Purveyor this way, do the following:
Follow all directions as they appear on the screen. Setup will copy the Purveyor files to the directory you specify.
The system installs Purveyor and automatically opens up the Purveyor Configuration property sheet. Following are two things to look at before starting the Purveyor Server:
It is possible to run Purveyor Desktop without it serving the Web—sort of like running in idle mode. You must start the server in order for it to serve HTML pages. After running Purveyor Desktop, you can start the server two ways. To start from the
Purveyor Configuration property sheet, do the following:
Figure 8.1. The Purveyor Main Settings page is where you start the server.
Alternatively, to start the server from the MS-DOS prompt, type the following:
https -start
You can also stop the Purveyor server two ways. You can use the Configuration property sheet to stop Purveyor:
If you prefer to stop the server from the MS-DOS prompt, type this:
https -stop
If, after trying the program, you decide that Purveyor is not for you, you may use the included uninstall program to automatically remove Purveyor from your computer. First, stop the server as described previously. Next, double click the Add/Remove
Programs icon in the Control Panel, select Purveyor, and click Uninstall. Both Windows Explorer and Control Panel must both be closed during the uninstall process because of the way in which Purveyor adds features to those utilities (for more information
about that, see the help file for the security features of Purveyor).
Occasionally, the Uninstall program fails to uninstall the file called purveyor.dll. You can remove the file manually if you wish.
If you decide that you really like Purveyor, call or send e-mail to Process Software for a license and permanent serial number. You may enter your permanent serial number by clicking on the License tab in Purveyor's Configuration property sheet
and following the instructions. If you do not register the software, Purveyor stops running after 30 days. Purveyor does not display the License tab if you enter a valid serial number during setup.
After you install Purveyor, you can accept the default settings and proceed directly to starting the server and testing the installation. You can customize your installation any time you wish. Customizing your installation includes the following:
We will talk about some of these steps below. Many steps are optional.
The installation procedure automatically sets up Purveyor in a way that allows you to run and use it right away. This initial configuration defines some of the ways the server runs, the files that it serves, and the records it keeps. You can view or
change the default settings by using the Purveyor Configuration property sheet. The server's default configuration settings are described briefly in the following list:
After installing Purveyor, test the server to make sure that it is running correctly. In order to fully test the server you must have a World Wide Web browser installed on the same system as Purveyor and on another remote system that has access to the
server's system. There are three principal ways to test the server:
To make sure that the server is currently running. Do the following:
When the server is running, the Start button appears grayed out. If the server is not running, click in on the Start button to start it up.
You can also get to Purveyor's Configuration property sheet by clicking on Windows 95 My Computer icon, selecting the Control Panel option, and clicking on the Purveyor icon.
If you want to test your server's ability to serve documents locally, you must have a World Wide Web client installed on the server's system. To test the server's ability to serve documents locally, do the following:
The browser displays the sample home page provided for you during the installation procedure.
Virtual paths enable you to serve files through customized URLs without the clients knowing exactly where on your computer the files are located. Of course, the client does need to know the name of the virtual path so that they can request it from your
server.
Virtual paths always start with a tilde character (~). An example of a virtual path is: http://www.yourco.com/~cdrom/files.html. Figure 8.2 shows the Purveyor Configuration Virtual Paths tab.
Figure 8.2. Creating virtual paths on your server is easy with Purveyor.
The FolkWeb Web server provided on the CD-ROM has a free evaluation period. The software requires approximately 3 MB of free disk space. Installation of the FolkWeb server is quite simple. After using WinZip to decompress the file from the CD-ROM to
your \TEMP directory, use Explorer to double-click SETUP.EXE. (Or use the Add/Remove Programs wizard as mentioned previously.)
Follow the instructions in the setup program. You will be prompted for your fully qualified domain name (machine.yourco.com, for example), your e-mail address, and the path to which to copy the FolkWeb files. You can always change the configuration of
your DNS name and e-mail address later if you need to.
Along with the Folkweb server installation, setup also installs ODBC drivers and a sample Microsoft Access database. It registers the sample database with ODBC administrator under the Data Source name IlarDtb. See Chapter 19, "Databases and the
Web," and the FolkWeb User's Guide for more information about ODBC and the database capabilities of the Web server.
Once you have installed FolkWeb, you may wish to place it in your Startup group or drag it to the Windows 95 desktop to create a shortcut to FolkWeb.
FolkWeb normally runs minimized while it is executing. Here are the steps to adjust the FolkWeb settings:
One of the most interesting things you can do with the FolkWeb server is to connect an ODBC database to the Web with no programming! Alas, we don't have the space to discuss this here but the FolkWeb User's Guide does provide step-by-step instructions.
In this section, you'll install and use the shareware HTML editor from the CD-ROM. This program lets you build a simple Web page with the click of one button. And we show you how to modify the file to make it your own home page.
WebEdit was developed by Knowledge Works, Inc. There are a lot of other HTML editors out there, but we haven't found any that quite match the price and the features of this one.
To install WebEdit, copy the file from the CD-ROM to the \TEMP directory on your hard disk. Unzip the file using WinZip and run the file SETUP.EXE from the same directory.
The reason we are using WebEdit is that all we need to do is run its Home Page Wizard to generate the basic framework of an HTML document. Here are the steps to get your first home page on the Web in a jiffy:
1: <HTML> 2: <!---------------------------------------------------> 3: <!-- This Web page was created by --> 4: <!-- the WebEdit Home Page Wizard --> 5: <!---------------------------------------------------> 6: <HEAD> 7: <TITLE></TITLE> 8: </HEAD> 9: 10: <!-- Modify the BODY tag to change the background --> 11: <!-- image or color, or the color of the font. --> 12: <!-- Background images, colors and font colors may --> 13: <!-- not appear in some browsers. --> 14: <BODY> 15: 16: <P ALIGN=center> 17: <!-- Use H tags to define headings in your pages --> 18: <H1></H1> 19: <H2></H2> 20: <HR> 21: </P> 22: 23: <HR> 24: <P> 25: Copyright © 1996<BR> 26: This Home Page was created by WebEdit, Sunday, January 07, 1996<BR> 27: Most recent revision Sunday, January 07, 1996 28: </P> 29: </BODY> 30: </HTML>
Figure 8.5. Your own default.htm home page running on your own Web server.
Admittedly, the home page shown in Figure 8.5 is not what you would call artistic. But that's what Part III of the book is all about—how to tap the real potential of HTML. And hey, now you're really on the Web!
