Looking at this documentation you may be feeling overwhelmed with information overload. Relax! You don't need to understand nor even read everything that's in this documentation, but when you want to dig deeper and understand some of the topics the information is there waiting for you. This topic serves as a roadmap for your startup with Web Connection.

This topic is designed to summarize the things that you should most definitely look at. It gives you an idea on where to start, what to try to get going and where to look for more information.

Use the Help File! It's got tons of information, and if you get stuck the answer is likely in here. It's keyworded and searchable in addition to the Content view, so take advantage of this very rich resource.

Setup and Installation

The first step in getting Web Connection installed is to install the product from the self-executing ZIP file. Run the file and the following installtion program. You can find more info on installation at this topic:

Setting up Web Connection

Checking out the demos

This step serves two purposes: It makes sure that the installation works and lets you see Web Connection in action with demos that you can look at and code you can step through if you choose. Make sure you run the Web Connection server (DO wcDemoMain.prg).

Go to the demo page

Most of the examples on the demo pages have links to show you the source code required to create that request by clicking on the [Show Code] link on the bottom of the page. At this time you can also start poking around in the code, making a few adjustments, maybe creating a new method and stepping through the code to get an idea what's involved in writing code for Web functionality.

There are two sets of samples: Core samples and Web Connection 5.0 samples, which sit on a separate page. To get started it may help to look at a few of the core samples first and see how Web Connection works in 'raw' code mode. Once you get the basic idea of how the Request and Response objects and the wwProcess class work, then you can take a look at the Web Control Framework (WCF) samples, which is the focus of Web Connection going forward. The WCF is conceptually a little more complex at first because there are many user controls to get familiar with, but it provides a much more interactive and flexible Web development approach to building Web applications. Both 'core' functionality and the new WCF features can co-exist in a single application.

Take the Step By Step Guide

The next step is to take the Core Step by Step Guide or The Web Control Framework Step by Step Guide which takes you through the motions of creating a new project, setting up custom requests of your own and writing code to handle a variety of tasks. This is a nice intro that shows you how to get started quickly with your own code. I suggest you follow the examples exactly creating the test project shown there to take you once through the process before building your own project in the next step. The Web Control Framework work through is also available as a Video walkthrough.

Digging a little deeper with the Framework Walkthrough

If now you're curious about some of the more advanced features of Web Connection and how things work behind the covers you can check out the How Web Connection workstopic. Here you find information on the architecture, how requests flow through the framework and another walk through that describes more advanced features that weren't covered in the Step by Step Guide.

This step is optional, but if you want to get the most out of Web Connection this topic tree will be well worth the time to read easpecially as you get more experienced with Web Connection.

Use the Web Connection Management Console to create a new project

Once you have familiarized a little bit with how Web Connection works you're probably ready to create your own requests for your own application. To do this you can use the New Project Wizard by running the Web Connection Management Console. To start the management Console type DO Console.exe into the command window or run the EXE from Explorer.

The new project will set up a new VFP application for you that you can start to write your own requests with. Now it's time to write access your business logic from within these Web requests and create some output to display back in the browser. As you start writing code you likely run into a few situations where you don't know how to do something. I suggest you go back to the demos and see if you can find something there that demonstrates what you're trying to do. Again, the message board is a great resource to post questions to if you get stuck or even if you want to bounce some ideas of other developers who have been down the path.

Use the Help File, Luke

Once you start your own development you will want to keep this help file handy. The extensive class reference will come in very handy as you start creating requests using the Web Connection framework classes. Most of your development work involves a couple of objects - wwRequest, wwResponse and wwProcess - take a look at those in detail to get up to speed quickly on what's available to you. Also, by now you may want some additional information on how things work and not just work by example from the demos.

The User Guide provides you with general discussion while the Class Reference (Framework Classes, Framework Support Classes, Utility Classes) provides detailed information on the actual classes in the framework. The class reference is laid out to provide an overview in the class header topic with examples and things to look out for with the actual class detail following class reference format showing the actual mechanics.

Configuration and Installation

Once you've built an application you will need to actually install it on a Web server or other server machine. Although this process is not difficult there are a fair number of files and components involved. The Web Connection Configuration topic describes many of the configuration components and the options available in them.

You can also resort to the Management Console and the Server Configuration Wizard to help you with configuring your Web server with the appropriate virtual directories and script maps as well as copying and registering the Web Connection components for your application.