ROFM CGI

Version 4.3B, August 12, 1998
By Russell Owen
With major contributions by François Matte
 

Contents

Introduction

Set Up

Installation

Upgrading

Use

Serving Your Own Database

Parameter Fields

Tips for Best Performance

Troubleshooting

Security

Support

Special Characters

Handling Special Characters

ASCII Characters

ISO Latin-1 Characters

Misc

History

Source Code

Acknowledgements

Legal Stuff

Introduction

ROFM CGI allows you to serve FileMaker Pro databases to the World Wide Web (WWW). It supports searching, adding, modifying and deleting records. Any of these operations may be separately enabled or disabled using the built-in security, and modification and deletion also have password protection. Records may be emailed, and ISO-Latin support handles some special characters.

ROFM CGI requires the following:

• A Macintosh computer
• System 7.5
• AppleScript 1.1, a full installation (this comes with System 7.5)
• QuickTime and (if you have a PowerMac) QuickTime PowerPlug. This is a new requirement for version 4.2.
• A modern Mac WWW server, such as QuidProQuo 2 (a free WWW server by Chris Hawk) or WebSTAR 2 (commercial). Note that WebSTAR 1 and QuidProQuo 1 will not work with this version of ROFM CGI, but will work with an ROFM CGI 4.1-B (which is still available).
• FileMaker Pro 3.0. Earlier versions of FileMaker Pro will not work with this version of ROFM CGI. If you have FileMaker Pro 2.1v3 you may use ROFM CGI 3.3-B (which is still available). If your FileMaker Pro is older than that, please contact Claris about an upgrade.
• Eudora 3.0 or later, free or "Pro" (1.5 free and 2.1 Pro will also work but are not recommended). Eudora is only necessary if you wish to email newly added, modified or deleted records.

The home site of ROFM CGI is <http://www.astro.washington.edu/owen/>. Look there for the latest version and certain still-useful older versions.

The full ROFM CGI package includes:

• ROFM.acgi: the CGI application.
• Default.html: contains links to the documentation, sample forms, and ROFM CGI's official home site. If you wish to use the sample forms, be sure to read this by submitting an http:// style request rather than opening it as a text file, else the forms will display but will do nothing.
• Documentation: a folder containing the documentation. Read it using any WWW browser. Start by opening the file "default.html" in the main folder (recommended) or by opening "contents.html" in the Documentation folder.
• Sample Files: a folder containing a sample database and forms to access it:
  • bb.db: the sample database, a simple bulletin board.
  • bbAdd.html: adds a record to the bulletin board. Demonstrates use of the email parameters.
  • bbFind.html: searches the bulletin board, returning links to found records. This form is liberally commented and is well worth examining.
  • bbFindTable.html: like bbFind.html but the links are returned as a table.
  • bbFindToEdit.html: like bbFind.html but clicking a link returns a record that can be modified or deleted. Also demonstrates the use of FindLinks.
  • ErrorTests.html: links that generate various errors. Primarily used to test ROFM CGI, but possibly helpful for understanding ROFM CGI's error messages.
• SearchInstr.html: instructions for searching FileMaker Pro databases. I suggest you supply a link to this file or one like it from all your Find and FindLinks forms (just as the sample forms do).
• Scripting Additions: contains several compiled scripts and osaxen that are only needed if you wish to modify ROFM CGI. One of the compiled scripts, ROFMUtil, contains routines for accessing FileMaker Pro databases. You may find it useful for your own scripting! See the Source Code section of the manual for more information.