Instant Web Publishing on MAC OSX

[Dr. Evil]

Hello!

I can not seem to show an available database for Instant Web Publishing.

I "believe" I have set my Accounts and Privileges correctly set up. I'm thinking it may be my settings on my computer. I have turned on every type of sharing I could find on my machine and nothing I do seems to work out.

Does this have to be so difficult?

Any guidance to this problem is much appreciated. :(

[Reed]

Do you have the extended privilege fmiwp enabled? Are you using FMP or server advanced?

[Dr. Evil]

Yes I do have extended privlages enabled.

I am using FMPro.

Thank you for your response!

[Reed]

Do you get the IWP home page?

Can you just make a new empty file, and try to share that by IWP? Let me know whether you can see that file.

[Steve T.]

I dunno, Doc.. IWP's supposed to be pretty straight forward and not too hard to do so maybe something else is going on like a firewall or something. In FM4-6, I think all I have to do is

(1) open db in FM

(2) enable IWP

(3) set db to shared by IWP

(4) go to host computer's IP address or domain name

If you are web serving with OS X via Apache on port 80, you may be having a conflict with Apache/FM. If you decide to use an alternate web port for IWP (like :591 or :8080), you would have to type that in your url, e.g. http://192.168.1.101:8080/ or whatever. If you don't intend to web serve from Apache, make sure it's disabled under

System Preferences > Sharing > Personal Web Sharing.

In this case, it may actually be better to disable everything except FM rather than enable everything. When you go to the url, do you see the FM Instant Web Publishing screen or does it just hang and say not found?

--ST

[Dr. Evil]

I get the FMP IW page, i turned everything off as far as sharing except FM.

I can pull up the database via IWP on my own computer, but It can not be found on other machines.

My goal is to have a server at home to host the database. And be able to access it from anywhere there is an internet connection.

I believe the server has to be on and the database has to be open at all times for this to happen?

I'm sure my problems are coming from my personal computer/server settings. Sharing and firewall stuff.

Also, does anyone have any tips on making "web friendly" layouts, pop-ups, and buttons?

Thank you for all the feedback!

[CyborgSam]

> i turned everything off as far as sharing except FM

The firewall has to be opened to allow the port IWP is using. If you've turned the web server off and are using port 80, you'll need to allow web access in the firewall. Otherwise, you'll have to allow whatever port you're using.

One tip for graphics: FileMaker will convert ALL graphics except GIF into very low quality JPGs. I prefer to use Photoshop to save them as GIF so they look better.

[Reed]

Does your home computer have a static IP address? If it doesn't you may have trouble if you're on the road and your address get changed...

When you make layouts for IWP, make sure you see how they look on every browser you plan to support before deployment. Things move around a bit from one to the next, so leave a little more room for that.

Pop-up lists/menus look different from one browser to the next, and if you want popup dialog windows like you can have in FMP, you're out of luck. You can only have one window at a time. Also, rounded buttons don't render on IWP.

[Steve T.]

Reed's right.. from home there may or may not be problems. In most cases, home internet connections get dynamic IP addresses which change from time to time, depending upon a lot of variables. Plus, if you use a router (wired/wireless) of some kind, you may be using local-access-only IP addresses such as 192.168.x.x which cannot be viewed from the general internet without reconfiguring the router to forward the appropriate web traffic (:80 or whatever) to that specific IP address.

If you go straight from DSL/cable modem to your computer, though, I think your IP will probably remain consistent until you shutdown or reboot your computer. Home publishing is trickier because home connections are designed primarily for downloading, not serving/uploading.

--ST

[Fenton]

You might want to go to http://www.versiontracker.com and do a search on "ip address" (then sort by date). There are several free applications which can show you both your internal and external (router) addresses. One, Ipenema, will email you your address, for access on the road.

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/19949

I don't have any practical experience with this however, so I can't tell you much more.

[IdealData]

I'm assuming you're doing this on an internal network - if not then there's loads of other things to do too (not in this reply).

Remote machines must have access to the FMP traffic.

1. Turn web sharing ON

2. Turn firewall on

3. Add port 591 (this is reserved by FMP) to the firewall list and ALLOW the traffic

4. Change the IWP setting for FMP to use port 591 (FMP will complain about port 80)

5. Use the URL http://your_ip_address:591 to access the IWP files