Creating a New Web Project Profile

A web project profile defines where and how you will publish your pages. You may have multiple, independent profiles that allow you to publish to different servers. For example, you might publish one version of your website via FTP to an ISP and a second version to an internal corporate LAN-connected web server.

Look at Publishing a Page to a Server for an example of how to define a profile.

  1. Click Profiles to display the Web Project Properties dialog box.

  2. Select "<New Profile>" in the Profile list.

  3. In the General > Profile Name section of the properties list, replace "<New Profile>" with the name of the new profile.

  4. In the General > Publishing Type field select either:

  5. If you selected "Publish via FTP" in step 4, make a selection from the General > FTP Program list (Version 7 and above). The options are:

  6. All pages in a project can read and write common application variables. If you know what application variables you need:

    1. Click or in the General > Application Variables field to display the Define Application Variables for Web Projects dialog box. You can return to this dialog any time later.

    2. Select the first profile from the Profile list.

    3. Enter each variable definition on a separate line, in the format Variable_Name = "Value". Remember, all application variables are type character.

    4. Repeat the variable definition for all other profiles.

    5. Click OK to continue.

Web project aliases make it possible to develop a web application in one environment, yet run it in another. This is done by replacing all database, data file, and connection string path information with aliases. For example, if the database in which the web project lives is c:\wms\wmsdata.adb and your grid references a table called c:\wms\patients.dbf, then when the grid is saved, what's saved is: [PathAlias:ADB_Path]\patients.dbf. [PathAlias:ADB_Path] is a built-in alias that refers to the location of your web publishing application. You would use the same type of path aliases when publishing Microsoft Access databases to web servers. When you "publish" your application, Alpha Five replaces all aliases with their expanded values.

  1. If you know what aliases you need:

    1. Click or to display the Define Path and Connection Aliases for Web Projects dialog box. You can return to this dialog any time later.

    2. Define aliases. See Path and Connection String Aliases.

    3. Click OK to continue.

Note: Each alias must define the full path to a directory. Aliases cannot be URLs.

Note: You can define the webroot folder (also known as the "document root") for a Web Application Server to be any directory on the server computer.

Note: When your browser reads pages in your local webroot folder, the URL will start with localhost.

  1. If you selected "Publish on LAN" in step 4:

    1. In the Publish to LAN > Webroot field enter the full path to your webroot folder (e.g. \\ServerMachineName\a5webroot).

    2. In the Publish to LAN > Folder field enter the folder within the webroot folder where the project will be published. Leave this setting blank to publish directly to the webroot folder. Specify "<Default>" to publish to a folder named "Database\Project", where Database represents the path to your application folder and Project represents the name of the selected project.

The following picture shows the directory structure of a server's webroot after several different projects had been published. [Picture]

Depending on the database that you are using, the Web Application Server may expect your application's data files to be located on the same server as its web pages. This is true for Alpha Five and Microsoft Access databases.

  1. If you selected "Publish via FTP" in step 4:

    1. Enter the target FTP address in the Publish using FTP > FTP Address field.

    2. Enter your user name in the Publish using FTP > Username field.

    3. Enter your password in the Publish using FTP > Password field.

    4. Enter the target folder in the Publish using FTP > Folder field.

  2. Optionally, if you need to send data files to the remote server, select "True" or check the Publish Database Files > Publish data files field.

    1. If you checked the Publish Database Files > Publish data files field, in the Publish Database Files > Files to publish field click the to display the Select Database Files to Publish dialog box. Place checks next to the Alpha Five .DBF files you want to publish. Click Add File and select the Microsoft Access database files you want to publish.

    2. In the Publish Database Files > Folder field enter the folder on the server computer where the project will be published. If publishing to a FTP site, specify the name of the folder within the FTP root.

  3. If you want to open a page on the target server computer after publishing:

    1. In the Open Page after Publish > Base URL field specify the host name of the web server (e.g. http://www.mydomain.com or http://ServerMachine (where ServerMachine is the network name of the server computer.

    2. In the Open Page after Publish > Server Port field specify the port that the Web Application Server is using.

    3. In the Open Page after Publish > Default Page field click to select the page to open.

  4. Click OK to save your inputs.

See Also

Configuring and Running the Server

Supported By

Alpha Five Version 6 and Above

Limitations

Web publishing applications only.