Frontier: 4.2.1 Upgrade

4.2.1 Upgrade

Wed, Mar 19, 1997 at 11:38:31 AM by DW

Important Note

Please install this upgrade if you want to stay current as we move Frontier forward.

Post comments on one of the Frontier mailing lists.

We'll go final with this release around mid-week.

There's real time pressure, so we won't be able to do much more than what's detailed on this page.

To install the upgrade, you must have already upgraded to Frontier 4.2.

You can get that at the Frontier 4.2 Upgrade page. Please follow the instructions carefully.

Download/Install

Please download the 4.2.1 Upgrader

ftp://ftp.scripting.com/userland/frontier4.2.1Upgrade.sit.hqx

http://ws3.scripting.com/ftpMirror/userland/frontier4.2.1Upgrade.sit.hqx

Run the Installer script to install the new objects on the parts list page.

Read the change notes in the following sections.

They explain the new features and also explain the contents of the Extras folder.

Thanks!

Final 4.2.1 changes

I made a few small changes today. These are the last changes in 4.2.1. They are marked with

today's date -- 3/18/97. Use the Find command in your web browser to find the newest changes.

HTML Suite

html.ftpTable -- 3/18/97

After it's finished building all the items in the table, a beep is emitted, and a dialog appears.

Now it's easy to tell when the process is finished.

html.buildPageTable

If you create a new site using the New Site command in Web menu before doing any website building, the command would fail with an error.

'The folder "Macintosh HD:" wasn't found'. Fixed.

html.runOutlineDirectives

A small change in html.runOutlineDirectives was necessary to be able to run suites.html on unattended servers.

The line 'target.setTarget (oldtarget)' is now enclosed in a try.

html.init

New preference, user.html.prefs.includeMetaCharset.

Defaults to false.

html.data.standardMacros.pageheader

Only generate charset meta tag if user.html.prefs.includeMetaCharset is true.

Changed format for #htmlHints comment. Added an extra carriage return before the #, to avoid confusing SSI page processors.

html.data.standardMacros.renderObject

Only copy the object if it's an outline.

Re-activate url-hotting in tables. Only impacts site developers who are using Frontier to render tables. Are there any?

user.websites.twentyFour

New source code sample site. This may be the best example yet. It's not installed, it's in the Extras folder.

To browse it, check out http://www.scripting.com/twentyFour/.

The full package, including CGI scripts, can be found on the Downloads page on that site.

http://www.scripting.com/twentyFour/downloads.html

View in Browser, Release Rendered Page commands -- 3/18/97

Both commands now launch your web browser if it's not already running.

The updated commands are in the Extras folder, New Menus/Commands sub-folder.

Please install them and the other commands in the folder.

Rewrites/fixes

BatchExporter suite rewritten

The original Batch Exporter was developed before people were building websites in Frontier. It needed to be modernized.

See Batch Exporter Suite for details on how the new Batch Exporter works.

FinderMenu bug fixes

We did a pass over the FinderMenu package, fixing bugs and adding a couple of new commands.

See FinderMenu Change Notes for details.

NewsPage fixes

Same thing with NewsPage.

See NewsPage Change Notes.

NetEvents

It's an app

You'll find it in the Extras folder in the Upgrade folder.

Copy it anywhere that's convenient for you. Suggestion: put it in the UserLand Utilities sub-folder of the Frontier folder.

Three odb tables

Three tables are installed.

system.verbs.apps.netEvents is the glue script table for the NetEvents app.

system.verbs.traps.WAPI contains the Apple Event handlers for the app.

suites.inetd provides a framework writing Internet server apps in Frontier. It's been updated in this release, see below.

See TCP Scripting for more info.

suites.inetd

If you want to shut down all servers, set user.inetd.shutdown to true.

To start all servers, run inetd.startup.

New entry point, inetd.startOne, starts a single server.

It now behaves like a normal suite with a menu and commands that call the suite scripts.

ClassAds

With 4.2.1 the ClassAds suite becomes part of the standard Frontier install.

It's a key component of the sites we want to encourage people to run with Frontier.

Docs are on the Frontier ClassAds Server page.

CGI Framework 4.2

Many thanks to Mason Hale for building the CGI framework and to Brent Simmons for modernizing it.

Brent has made it so that the framework is server-agnostic, so you can switch web servers without changing Frontier.root.

I've included the new CGI Framework, as supplied by Brent, in the Extras folder.

Please install the new framework if you're running CGIs.

It's on all our servers, it works with more software, including Netpresenz, Quid Pro Quo, MPWS, Apple's web server.

It's going to be in the new root.

For more info see Brent's site or CGI Scripting in Frontier.

Brent's 4.2b3 release is in the 4.2.1 upgrader. If he has a new release before we go final, we'll include that.

Miscellaneous

New verb, date.dayString

This displays the full name of the current day of the week, for today, "Monday".

dialog.alert (dayString (date.dayOfWeek (clock.now ())))

© Copyright 1996-97 UserLand Software. This page was last built on 5/7/97; 1:30:57 PM. It was originally posted on 12/9/96; 6:48:55 AM. Internet service provided by Conxion.