FMP Unlimited & IIS Challenge...

[Tokyo-B]

I am having difficulty setting up FMP 5 Unlimited on IIS 5 and would really appreciate some help. One of the main reasons for having difficulty is that FMP is not two-byte enabled so I have to use the Japanese version. This means that all the manuals etc., are in Japanese too. Bit too much to read and comprehend, so with excuses out of the way, here is our scenario followed by my questions:

Scenario:

We have a Win2k server with IIS 5 and FMP v5 Unlimited. In the FMP box there are two CD's. One is FMP v5, the other a Web Connector for IIS.

Our IIS server is set with one IP address for two domains using host headers.

"Domain-English"

"Domain-Japanese"

Both domains/websites share a common on-line FMP db. This means that although the HTML on both sites that 'front' the database is in Japanese and English respectively, the actual database that accepts the data entry 'behind' these pages is exactly the same one.

The structure we used on the Mac under Webstar was quite simple: In the FMP Application Folder is a folder called WEB. In this Folder was the on-line FMP database, the index.html file for the English site and all the subfolders of this site such as images etc.

The Japanese website was a complete mirror of the English site structurally with the very important exception that the 'parent' folder was called 'j' and was INSIDE the WEB folder. This means that the Japanese index.html file was one directory below the English index.html file but had the same name.

The reason for this was that if we needed to redo the web site, we could do it in English or Japanese first and then just translates the other language without having to change the names of images or pages etc.

Under Webstar, we had no problems with this. Moving over to IIS 5 has cause a few problems. Here they are.

Problems under IIS 5:

Using the directory structure as described above, every time we switched from the English to the Japanese page, the pages text would change to Japanese usual, but the English graphics would load... This is because IIS or FMP (?) is looking in the IMAGES folder, and since both the Japanese and English images folders have same name then I guess the upper directory is being accessed.

Now, to correct this we tried two different way:

1) We made a duplicate 'j' folder and its contents and stored it outside the WEB folder So two 'j' folders now. One outside the WEB folder and one inside the WEB folder as a subfolder of the English site. This folder outside of the WEB folder was pointed to under IIS as the Japanese website HOME DIRECTORY. When the HTML page with the FMP form on was selected in either Japanese or English, the page the user saw would change to the correct one and the URL would have the port 591 added to it. This caused no problems but does not seem the best way to resolve the problem so we tried another 'cleaner way.

2) In the FMP application folder we made two folders.

Folder 'english'

Folder 'japanese'

These contained identical sites in structure and layout with the exception of languages on the pages. The WEB folder one directory below these two folders contained a new file called 'index.html' and within this page pointers to the 'index.html' of the respective Japanese and English pages/sites.

Unfortunately, we cannot get this to work, so now for some questions:

1) What is the purpose of the IIS Web connector CD. (I cannot read the Japanese manual well enough to understand its purpose. Too much technical Japanese....)

1.1) How do I use it on a single server?

2) Do we have to keep all of our web sites containing databases in the WEB folder?

3) Is there 'Best Practises' guide anywhere for setting up IIS and FMP?

4) Where or what is the ideal structure for setting up a system like the one described above? That is, what is the ideal workable structure for having two different web sites share the same FMP db?

I hope that this problem provides useful insight to the kind of problems one can face when Migrating from Mac to Win, and really appreciate feedback on this.

Best regards,

[Anatoli]

Just small advice:

1. WebConnector connects web server like IIS with single or many FM Unlimited. Unlimited can be on another CPU or on the same. You do not have to use it in your single machine scenario. You can use IIS on port 80 and WebCompanion on port 591. With WC you can have only 80 port active.

2. NEVER EVER put databases into web folder. If they are in web folder, anyone has direct access to them.

3. :

4. Best structure:

5. Web folder with subfolders like website1, website2 as many as you wish.

[Tokyo-B]

Thanks Anatoli, however could you clarify a couple of things, thanks?

Basically, I have read through all the on-line help in FMP regarding setting up for the web. The only reference I can find to the WEB folder is one stating to put the HOME PAGE of the web site into it. That's all.

Now, I am wondering if I can do just this and keep all the other pages for the web sites in a totally other place or even other server.

Do you know if this is possible?

Thanks.

[Tokyo-B]

Thanks again Anatoli.

As for Czech, my grandfather on my mother's side was from Prague. Married my grandmother after being posted to the UK during WWII. I never learnt any Czech although my grandmother spoke it. I do speak Japanese though...

Anyway, in continuation on the IIS and FMP talks, where is this information written about what should be kept in the WEB folder? I have read the manuals and the on-line help but it is so vague. Just a reference to the HOME PAGE of the site being in the WEB folder, but nothing else. I would really like to find a good reference for exactly how or where things should go.

During the holidays, I am working in the office on the Win2k server trying to get FMP to work as it does on our Mac. So, a lot of experimenting going on. I did manage to get the web site working outside of the WEB folder. I created two folders: PAGE-e and PAGE-j. These contained the full web sites including the INDEX.html files. In the WEB folder I made a new file called INDEX.html and all this contained was the two URLs for the PAGE-e and PAGE-j site.

The home directories for these sites were set in IIS and I had no problem connecting to them on the web. However, when I went to our DOWNLOAD page which has a form backended by FMP 5-J, the browser would give a dialog box saying that 'download_form.html cannot be found. I will experiment a bit more and see how I can resolve this since putting all site in the WEB folder will be impractical as we grow.

Any other tips you can geive me on this are much appreciated.

Thanks and Happy New Year

[Anatoli]

No. Everything you'll use in browsers must be in web folder in FileMaker folder.

You can use any structure in that web folder.

If it is outside the web folder, the WC server will not serve those files.

On the other hand, you can call within such page graphic through standard URL.

Or you can serve Frameset from main IIS and just one page in that frameset can be with FileMaker data. Like in http://www.techtydenik.cz which is weekly magazine posted to web -- sorry it is in Czech language.

[ December 31, 2001: Message edited by: Anatoli ]

[Anatoli]

Aren't we all Czech in deep origin? Just kidding.

You can link files from and to Web folder, no problem. But if the HTML page has something to do with FM data In and Out, it MUST be served from WEB folder. You already discovered that.

I have in my Web folder 20 subfolders set for various companies and then within that the full structure of their dynamic pages.

I doubt you will outgrow that

[Tokyo-B]

quote:

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I have in my Web folder 20 subfolders set for various companies and then within that the full structure of their dynamic pages.

I doubt you will outgrow that

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Well, we already host about 270 companies, but not all on our Mac... So, outgrow it, we did a long time ago. We use LINUX mostly, for the other clients or UNIX for certain clients. A lot of the hosting is for our TeX clients and a few ones on the SI front.

I do appreciate the help though. Setting up web is fine, just FMP and Web that is giving me a hard time, since the FMP manauals and help are not very clear. I guess I will just keep a copy of the download.html in the Web folder linked by its 'domain:591/download.html' URL, if I need to keep directories on other servers.

Just for the record, we recently dealt with an upgrade and migration of databanks with 20 terabytes of data. But not in FMP...

Cheers

[Anatoli]

Wow that is lot of companies. But you still didn't outgrow our server in FileMaker

Obviously FM is very limited. But what FM does is unique in simplicity -- after you manage the fist 10 steps and problems. Also the development cost are 10-50% compared with competition.

BTW, in my experience NT4 server is the best for FileMaker (server and Unlimited) but that claim is always salt in Mac users eyes

[Tokyo-B]

quote:

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Wow that is lot of companies. But you still didn't outgrow our server in FileMaker

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Not yet anyway, since I am still learning the tricks of setting up FMP with IIS. Have been an FMP developer though since 1992. Have some very sophisticated dtabases, but would love a good ERD tool like in Access. Something I could pull into Visio 2002 would be great.

BTW: still no reply on where I can get good reference materials fro setting up FMP on the web. Guess there aren't any.

Thanks again,

[Tokyo-B]

quote:

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Just post question here

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Guess you did not read properly above. I am asking a question regarding:

quote:

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where I can get good reference materials for setting up FMP on the web

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[Anatoli]

Just post question here

[Steven H. Blackwell]

FMI web site has information and Coulombre book does as well, I believe.

Old Advance Man

[Tokyo-B]

Guess what I found in the FMP Dev folder? A CDML folder containing CDML info...!

NOW, I am starting to understand how things should be set up with custom publishing. Hope I can use this to help others later.

Apart from this, my next question is, shouldn't we be setting up a few more areas for providing the info that is so hard to find?

Cheers,

[Anatoli]

You wrote:

quote:

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BTW: still no reply on where I can get good reference materials fro setting up FMP on the web. Guess there aren't any.

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I can just agree -- I didn't find any yet

So you can just ask and someone will try to help