ISFactoids

Call me IS-mail or... 20 (or less) IS Web Factoids

1) In addition to providing web access to your FC desktop, IS can also serve static web content (HTML pages). These pages can be put on the server as FC documents, uploaded files, or through links to external folders. When users access the web server unauthenticated (without entering UserID and Password) they are directed to the WWW folder. If there is an index.html (or default.html/Home Page/etc.) there, this page is server to the browser, if no such page exists, the folder will be served much as would be to a client pointing at the same folder. So, when IS is first installed, the root of the public web site is in the WWW folder, and any content you place there becomes your web site. This content can consist of HTML files, FC conferences, FC folders, FC documents and FC messages. Any content placed here is subject to standard FC permission restrictions, so placing a restricted conference in the web site will lead to a login dialog. Note that when unauthenticated users are accessing the web site, they are logging into FC as the internet gateway account, so are subject to the same restrictions it is. Once users authenticate (answer the login dialog), they are logging into FC as themselves, and have all of their normal permissions.

2) The Web Users priv group is an override group and is applied to all log-ins through the web. If a conference has "Web Users - disallowed" in its permissions list, then no web login will be able to enter this conference.

3) X-FC tags work only in parsed HTML files. Out of the box, IS considers the following files to be parsed HTML: 1) files ending in .SHTML or .SHTM 2) include files (.INC) 3) templates (from the .templates folder).

4) IS maps file extensions/Mac type and creator info to MIME types using the information contained in the mimetypes file, located in the config folder, which is collocated with the IS executable.

5) IS gets it's icons from the icons.fc file. This file can be located in the site folder within the post office, or in the config folder where the IS executable is located.

6) IS gets all strings that appear in error messages and guide text from the EN.FC file. You can create a similar file for each other language you wish to support on your web site.

7) Any FC document named "Home Page" that appears in a conference or folder will render as the main page for that folder, similar to index.html, except it contains normal, styled FC message body.

8) The "Literal HTML" style in the client can be used to insert HTML code into FC messages and documents. This HTML will not run through the normal FC style run processing and will be output as is for interpretation by the browser.

9) Admins can create new files in the .templates folder that will be invoked whenever a user attempts to open a form of that type from the web. So, if you have a custom form with ID 1001, then placing the appropriate HTML file in the .templates folder and naming it 1001 will allow you to support that form on the web. See earlier posted document on send.128 template for more details.

10) Web sites made up of conferences, documents, uploaded files, and messages can be replicated between servers.

11) IS caches web content (documents/templates/and uploaded files) in RAM for faster access. To avoid permissions issues, IS will load items into the cache only if they are accessed by an unauthenticated web session. The server notified IS of when to expire cache items based on the changing of the status of the unread flag on the item. If the flag comes on, IS is notified to clear the object from cache. Items served from emulated folders have no unread flags, and so they will not expire from IS's cache when they change.

12) Any user can create a home page simply by using the client's home page command to create the "special" folder, and then populating this folder with the HTML files or FC content they wish to have on their home page. A users homepage can be accessed from the left hand column in the directory list page, or by entering http://www.yourdomain.com/~useralias where user alias is the users internet alias or any single match of their name (i.e. ~terry_whyte).

13) For the purposes of publishing content to the web, a link is as good as an original. So, you don't need to put the real News conference in your WWW folder, an alias to it will do.

14) IS ships with a standard home page in the WWW folder. This page can be replaced by any page you wish. The graphics on this page come from the images folder and these can be replaced or supplemented with additional images.

15) A site preferences document named ".siteprefs" can be placed at the root of any web site IS serves. This form contains settings which can be adjusted by the admin to "brand" that web site. Any site using stock templates can have it's look altered by the admin simply by changing the data on this form. This form affects the colors, fonts, and images used by the templates to display the web UI, as well as allowing admin control over the number and placement of elements in the web UI.

16) The "Header Match" document contained in the "Internet Services" configuration folder allows the admin to "steer" different web browsers to different template sets based on the "User-Agent" string presented by the browser.

17) The files default.html, default.html, index.html, index.html, etc. are not selected in a particular order, rather the oldest one on the server will be the first one found. In other words, no particular file name is preferred over the others.

18) As of FC6, web UI log-ins have the exact same effect on server load and license usage as client log-ins. This was not true of earlier versions of IS.

19) If new browser "friendly error message" display is confusing your users, FC7 IS can give you some relief. With FC7 it is now possible to write error templates which will return as the "hit" page whenever system errors are encountered. The FC web help templates are an example of this functionality.

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