How to Install
How to InstallHere's what the AutoWeb folder looks like...
The Thread Manager
If you're running Macintosh System 7.5 or greater, you already have the Thread Manager installed. Skip to the next paragraph. If you're running an earlier version of the OS, you'll need to install the Thread Manager extension. Copy it into your System Folder, Extensions sub-folder, and restart your machine. Frontier Runtime runs each script in its own thread. Things may work without the Thread Manager, but they'll work better with it installed.
Edit the Config Script
The next step in installing AutoWeb is to edit your Config Script.
Launch Little Script Editor.
Choose the Config Script command from the AutoWeb menu. A window opens:
This file contains a Frontier script that sets up a table containing essential information about your website.
Because this script contains your password, please treat it with care, don't pass it around. If you want to be totally safe, you can replace the password assignment line with:
dialog.ask ("Enter password:", @user.web.password);
AutoWeb needs to know where to store your HTML and downloadable FTP files on your server. And it needs to know how the outside world will find your website and FTP files. If you don't know how to specify this info, please ask your system operator for help. If they have any questions, please ask them to contact us at userland@hotwired.com.
Note: Sysops running MacHTTP as their server should check out MacHTTP Sysops Notes for special information on setting up their Config Script.
Other Important Fields
user.web.sysopTagline is used by AutoMail, for DaveNet this variable is set to "Amusing Rants from Dave Winer's Desktop."
user.web.email is the return address for all email generated by AutoMail.
user.web.autoMailAd is a one-line string that's displayed at the bottom of every email message generated by AutoMail. For DaveNet, at times it's reported the number of shopping seconds remaining before Christmas; it's also pointed to the UserLand website. Leave it empty if you have nothing you want to promote.
user.web.nextPrevLinks tells AutoWeb whether or not you want it to generate flat, Next/Prev links at the top of every page it generates. Set it to false if you haven't set up the Next/Prev links, or don't want the feature enabled for other reasons.
user.web.webmail is the email address that appears at the bottom of every web page that AutoWeb generates.
user.web.copyrightNotice is (obviously!) your copyright notice. It's added at the bottom of each page that AutoWeb generates. It can be empty, "", if you like.
Optional fields
All the previous fields of the user.web table are required. In order for AutoWeb to work, you must supply them. The following fields are optional -- their default values will probably work.
user.web.homePageName
Usually the top-level or "home" page of your website will be called index.html. Some systems require you to use another name. Your server may be running on a file system with 3-character extensions (e.g. MS-DOS, Windows) or you might be running MacHTTP which assumes it's "default.html". Here's an example:
user.web.homePageName = "hello.html";
If you don't set this variable, it defaults to index.html.
user.web.homeURL
user.web.homeURL is the URL that the Home item at the top of each page points to. You can say something like:
user.web.homeURL = "www.yourorg.com/yourname/";
user.web.homeURL defaults to index.html, which is usually just what you want, but you may be connecting multiple websites together and may want the Home item to take you somewhere else.
user.web.maxFileChars, user.web.fileExtension
You can set the maximum number of characters in the names of files we create; and you can tell AutoWeb what extension to use for these files. We put this option in for people who are running servers on MS-DOS and Windows. You can say:
user.web.maxFileChars = 8;
user.web.fileExtension = ".htm";
If you don't set these variables, they default to 31 and ".html" respectively, which works nicely for Unix and Macintosh servers.
user.web.macServer
Set user.web.macServer to true if the web server is running on your Macintosh network and can be accessed thru file sharing. You can say:
user.web.macServer = true;
If user.web.macServer is true, AutoWeb will never copy a file to your upload folder. It defaults to false.
user.web.faster
Set user.web.faster true if you want the rebuilding and uploading scripts to run faster.
user.web.faster = true;
There's a cost though -- if it's true, you won't be able to move the Message window in Little Script Editor while the script is running, and the Stop button in the Message window will remain disabled. You can still stop the script by pressing cmd-period, though there will be no confirmation in the Message window. Its default value is false.