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Last Updated: 02/12/12

 
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Web Connection

Web Connection Features

Oh, so you're ready for the marketing spiel? Well, believe it or not we really mean the following statements. After all we make a living of using this stuff every day in addition to selling it! For more detail on any of this information please visit the Online Documentation site, which includes the full Web Connection docs from our help file. You can find much more complete info expanding the blurps below. <s> -- Rick Strahl

Connect Visual FoxPro to the World Wide Web with West Wind Web Connection and take full advantage of Visual FoxPro's powerful data access and programmability for creating dynamically generated Web content. Web Connection provides a scalable Web platform for building fast, powerful and flexible applications with ease. Take your pick between code based HTML creation or FoxPro based HTML scripting, dynamic form rendering or PDF Report generation to create your Web output. The supplied classes and tools greatly simplify receiving Web server requests, using the provided information and generating the final dynamic HTML and other data content such as XML or raw data to return to the client. Tools abound to faciliate the output generation so you don't have to do it all by hand - but the functionality is there to work at the lowest level if you choose to do so.

Already doing Web development with Active Server Pages? Find out for yourself why Web Connection provides much better performance and scalability in addition to a much easier development cycle that gets your app online in days not months. Compare ASP and Web Connection side by side and judge for yourself - we guarantee Web Connection is at least twice as fast than comparable ASP code (script or VFP/VB COM) and it will scale better at higher loads! Web Connection is ready for your Enterprise and e-Commerce needs now!

Take advantage of Web Connection's cutting edge technology that leverages Microsoft Internet Information Server, ISAPI, COM and of course Visual FoxPro for building high performance Web backends that can handle large scale production loads. Web Connection has been rigorously tested and deployed in a live environment on one of the busiest commercial online stores at the time on the Web running as many as 2.5 million Web Connection Server hits per day maxing out 3 full T1 lines. Web Connection has been tested in excess of 4 million backend hits a day on a single quad processor server. Although Web Connection works best with Microsoft Internet Information Server it can run on any ISAPI or CGI compliant Web server.

And Web Connection is ready for the next wave, too: The Enterprise Edition features a COM/Automation object manager that allows building VFP servers that can be scaled and at the same time interface with other Microsoft Internet Technologies like Microsoft Transaction Server. And unlike other tools from Microsoft, Web Connection makes it easy to develop COM applications. Build and debug the application interactively in the VFP IDE, then simply switch into COM operation mode from a Web link and take advantage of COM performance, scalability and administration without the development hassles of a pure COM environment - get all the benefits of COM without the development and administration pain. Compiled servers can run either as COM objects or as standalones for testing and debugging.

And that's not all. Web Connection also includes powerful support for distributed application development using XML, SOAP and Web Services. Web Services are easy to create by simply creating a class in a Web directory file. Web Services are dynamically compiled so you can make changes without recompiling code and of course you can debug your Web services against live hits. Powerful XML features for both client and server sides are also included that allow you to persist data from into cursors into XML, or .Net DataSets. Objects can also be persisted into XML and back making short work of passing business logic between client and server applications in a standardized hierarchical XML format. Whether you're extending your existing Web applications with XML support or whether you're building a full client server system using the Web and HTTP as the network, Web Connection makes this job easy. Client tools include support for a flexible HTTP client, a powerful SOAP client as well as a number of support classes for sending and receiving Email (SMTP/POP3) and FTP file transfers.

The opportunities of distributed applications are endless and it's easy to build them with Web Connection. Check out our distributed Web demos for ideas on how to use this powerful technology. (Some of these demos require IE5 and VFP6/VFP7 installed on the client).

Web Connection includes close to 1000 topics of online documentation with a rich User Guide that includes a number of Step By Step guides to take you through various tasks. A complete class reference is also provided with many rich examples and best practices notes. "The best documentation in the business", rave some of our customers. There are also over 40 sample requests that demonstrate the features of Web Connection as well as several demo applications that put the pieces together in small full fledged applications. The West Wind Message Board forum software is provided with full source code, including the offline reader which demonstrates using a VFP client side application sharing data with an online Web application.

Web Connection is a developer tool and ships with full source code for the object oriented Web framework and all of the support tools and sample. This is a fully open architecture that you as the developer have control over - no hidden away black box code here! Use the source to customize, learn and protect your investment into the future.

But don't take our word for it: You can download a fully functional shareware version to try for yourself. You may also want to check out what some of our customers are saying about Web Connection and check out some of the commercial sites that are running Web Connection today.

Put the power of Microsoft Visual FoxPro, ISAPI, COM and Microsoft Internet Information Server to work for you today!

Features

 

 

Support for ISAPI and CGI Web Servers

  • Support for Microsoft IIS & PWS, Apache, WebSite, Netscape
  • Automated setup for all Microsoft Web Servers.
  • Easy installation and full Web Server configuration

Easy to use

  • Wizards help you create projects, configure the Web server, create business objects and more
  • Powerful Process class manages Web request handling
  • Everything you need is sent to your handler methods.
  • Focus on and write your application not Web messaging logic!
  • You create and work with a single class simply adding methods or HTML template pages.

Interactive VFP Development against real Web requests

·         Use the VFP debugger against live Web requests

·         Set breakpoints in your code

·         Errors in your code put you to the line of code in question

·         Powerful error handlers handle application errors smartly at development and deployment time.

·         Automatic error message display, error logging and optional email notification.

Powerful HTML/HTTP Response class

·         Single method table and record rendering and editing

·         Data driven HTML form elements

·         Script HTML pages with ASP naming conventions/syntax, but using VFP code

·         Use any HTML Editor and data bind fields to your HTML forms

·         Render DHTML directly from Visual FoxPro forms in Internet Explorer 4 or later

·         Print Fox reports to Adobe Acrobat documents to display on the fly in a browser

·         Full access to the HTTP header for Cookies, Authentication, Redirection and more

·         Uses ASP Response object naming conventions

·         Mix and match approaches for best performance and ease of development

Powerful HTTP Request class

  • Full access to all incoming HTTP headers and server variables
  • Simplified methods for easy access and pre-parsed logical functional
  • Retrieve form variables directly back into business objects with FormVarsToObject
  • Uses ASP Request object naming conventions

Distributed Application Support (XML, Web Services, SOAP)

  • Extensive XML features: Create and import XML from cursors and objects
  • Full support for Web Services, SOAP and WSDL with easy Wizard driven interfaces
  • Rich HTTP client side tools for use in your VFP applications to retrieve Web content
  • Remote HTTP data engine class – call your Web application as a data server over the Web
  • Aysnchronous Request Handler class for long running Web requests
  • Powerfull HTTP client class to allow your VFP apps to retrieve and access Web content
  • It's extremely easy to build e-business communications applications

Client side tools for your VFP Fat Client applications

  • Powerful HTTP class for access Web content and calling your XML and Web services
  • SMTP and POP3 email classes
  • FTP class
  • TCP/IP Socket class for client and server operation
  • VFP based SOAP client

Light weight business object class

  • Single class implementation with only a handful of methods
  • Easy to learn and get started with (use is optional of course)
  • Disconnected data paradigm optimized for Web and e-Business applications
  • Easy data persistence with support of a number of XML persistance modes
  • Easy data binding to object properties and FormVarsToObject
  • Support for object nesting and aggregation
  • Perfect fit for Web Connection Web applications

Built in User Session Object makes it easy to track users through a site

  • Easy to use and extensible
  • Table based – works with VFP or SQL Server Tables
  • Can work across multiple load balanced machines

UI and remote HTML based server administration

·         View and clear logs, see server status and configure servers

·         View, start and stop sessions

  • Live online code updates without taking servers down
  • West Wind Web Monitor site monitoring application

Deploy applications as COM Objects for better performance

  • Faster operation using fewer CPU resources
  • Simplified maintenance Mode operations
  • Live code updates without shutting down the Web server
  • Auto restart of timed out or crashed server instances

Sample Applications

  • West Wind Message Board – the same application that runs on our Web site
  • West Wind Photo Album
  • Sample Applets: Guest Book, XML based Guest Book, Developer Registry, plus over 30 specialized function examples

Developer Features

  • Full Visual FoxPro Source Code
  • Extensible object oriented Visual FoxPro Web application framework
  • Most classes are built modular and can be reused outside of Web Connection
  • Complete documentation: Over 1000 help topics with user guide, class reference, examples, and knowledgebase
  • Free support on our renowned online message board with its knowledgeable developer community
Product

Price

West Wind Web Connection

$399.00

Limited Runtime Distribution License (50 Server Installations)

$699.00

Unlimited Runtime Distribution License

$1399.00

Shipping Options

 

Send CD or invoice

$10.00

Send CD or Invoice Foreign (outside of US or Canada) *

$20.00

Email notification and FTP download

FREE

Support Options

 

Online Support on Message Board   http://www.west-wind.com/wwthreads/
All questions directly related to Web Connection are answered within 24 hours.

FREE

Priority phone or email support (½ hour increments billed via credit card)

$150.00/hr


*
All products are delivered electronically only. No printed materials are provided – all documentation is provided in Word format.