=============================================================================== WEST COAST WEB ADVENTURES, INC. NEWSLETTER - Vol #1, Issue #1, January 15, 2001 Online version at: http://www.WestCoastWebAdventures.com/news/news01152001.txt =============================================================================== Visit http://www.WestCoastWebAdventures.com for additional information, or to add your two sense, or to unsubscribe from this newsletter. =============================================================================== Contents - About this Newsletter - Cool Tools: Optimize your Web Toolbox - Case Study: Building a Search Engine - Working with Code: A Graphing Object - FGL Tips: Debugging Secrets - This Week's Referral: JimTools =============================================================================== About this Newsletter =============================================================================== This newletter was created as a free resources by West Coast Web Adventures for people interested in providing themselves with more control of their web presence and overall computer experience. It is published via email once or twice per month, more or less, as the opportunity and need arises. We hope that users of all experience levels will get something out of each issue. The newsletter is published in-house by West Coast Web Adventures staff members, but outside content contributions are always welcome. Contact the webmaster if you have something to contribute. =============================================================================== COOL TOOLS: Optimize Your Web Toolbox =============================================================================== While there are lots of fancy programs out there that can help you get the job done, there are a few that once mastered are tough to beat. Due to popular request, here are the tools we use to create all of the things you find at the West Coast site. Used correctly, they are the only tools you'll ever need... -- INTERNET BROWSER -- We do most of our surfing with Microsoft's Internet Explorer v5.5. We have found it to be a bit more stable and substantially more flexibile than previous versions and other browsers. Though we primarily use IE for development and surfing, we also use the latest version of Netscape just to make sure everything looks good in both environments. If you can make your stuff look good in both environments with a single set of source code then you will have succeeded in appeasing the vast majority of the internet marketplace. -- PROGRAM EDITOR -- While the trend seems to be larger programs that do everything for you, such as Front Page, we prefer the simplicity of a good text editor with HTML and other language familiarity. To that end, we use our own Program Editor which is part of the freely available VMSDK. It supports multiple files of any size, has syntax highlighting for a number of languages, and is blazingly fast. Every page you see on the West Coast site was created with this program. And the price is right...free. Check it out at: http://www.westcoastwebadventures.com/products/vmsdk.htm -- GRAPHICS PROGRAM -- Photoshop. Are there really any others? This program is hands down the best product out there. It can do anything and everything. Older versions are ok too as long as it supports layers. Newer versions have more web stuff in them but also new interface paradigms. Our preferred release is Photoshop 5.0. Check out the imagery on our site to get a feel for what this thing can do! -- FTP SOFTWARE -- There are a lot of really good software products in this category. We tend to use either WSFTP or, depite its terrible name, CUTE FTP. Both programs are easy to use yet powerful and flexible. Both have free trial versions are are realatively inexpensive to purchase. -- LOCAL SERVER -- There's nothing like developing a web site or browser-based application with your own local server running on your machine. No FTP, no CHMOD, just write and see - instantly. For us, WebSuite's the thing. Period. And it too is free. http://www.westcoastwebadventures.com/products/websuite.htm =============================================================================== CASE STUDY: Building a Search Engine =============================================================================== The process of creating a search engine to compete with Yahoo or one just for seaching your own site is remarkably similar --- only the scope and depth of functionality are different. In either case, you need to get a search request, search for matches, process the results, and format the output. Beyond that, simply throw in a few adds, a couple of pitches for your other endeavours and, presto, you've got a real search engine! Of course the real defining quality is the accuracy of the search and the depth of its content. For our purpose, we'll leave the professional seach engines at peace today and concentrate exclusively on building a solution for your own web site. The case study in point can be found at at the top of every page within the West Coast web site. This article will provide the concepts involved without direct reference to source code, however, full source code is provided for the example used. Since we don't want every page on our site to be indexed, after all there may be things that we deem private, we need a list of files to index. Likewise, we want to control the descriptive text that is displayed if a match is found in a specific file. We keep this information in a ASCII text data file which is extremely efficient and very easy to maintain. To get the request, we add a small input form to the top of each of our pages that does nothing more than get the request and forward it to the actual search engine. We also added a checkbox option so the user can request a broader search than just our site. Once the request has been received, the search engines loops through a text search process for each searchable file. If a match is found, we store information about the file and number of hits found into an array. Once the search is complete, we sort the array based on the number of actual hits, then format the output and display it back to the user. In our case, we also generate a relevancy graph to accompany the output. The graph object used is detailed in the "Working With Code" section of this newsletter. In case the user wants a search beyond our site, the request is repackaged and passed on to an external search engine (our preferred one is G02NET.COM), which we pop up in another browser window so as not to loose control of our site. This method is easy to implement and maintain, and provides very good performance on sites containing less than a few hundred pages to search. The next level of search engines involves spiders, high-speed indexing, and advanced extraction functionality --- which is more than most web site need and certainly beyond the scope of this article. The source for this case study can be found at: http://www.westcoastwebadventures.com/download/search.ap_ =============================================================================== WORKING WITH CODE: A Graphing Object =============================================================================== We wanted a simple FGL class object that could format a bar graph for use in our search engine project (see previous article). We also wanted it to be customizable for other uses and easily incorporated into a web page. The object itself contains only two methods and a half dozen instance variables. The variables are used to initialize the format and presentation of the graph including size and color. The new( ) method is invoked with these default values when the object is created. The display( ) method is used to actually display the graph in the web page. It is optionally passed a single parameter that represents the percent value to display. If no parameter is provided, the default percent value that was provided when the object was created is used. Including this function in a web page requires either the class definition to be in the file or a reference to a FLB library file that contains the source. Once that is accomplished, the graph can easily be incorporated directly into your HTML as in the following example: This year's rainfall is 27% less than last year's, as illustrated in the following graph:
<[ g = new( "graph", "black", "red", 200, 50, 1, 0 ) ! g.display( 27 ) ]>
Note: This source has been slightly altered to better format this screen. You can view the source in its original format as part of the search engine project mentioned in the previous article. ////////////////////////////// // Graph Object Source Code // ////////////////////////////// CLASS graph PUBLIC: local aclr, bclr, width, height, border, pct METHOD new( aclr, bclr, width, height, border, pct ) ::aclr = aclr ::bclr = bclr ::width = width ::height = height ::border = border ::pct = pct return( 1 ) END METHOD display( pct ) local s if ( type( pct ) == "N" ) ::pct = pct end if ( ::pct > 99.49 ) ::pct = 100 else ::pct = int( ::pct ) end if ( ::pct < 1 ) ::pct = 1 end s = "" s += "
\r\n" s += " " s += " \r\n" end s += " \r\n" s += "
 
\r\n" s += "
\r\n" return( s ) END END //////////////////// // End of Listing // //////////////////// =============================================================================== FGL TIPS: Debugging Secrets =============================================================================== Debugging FGL programs can be simplified through the use of a handful of internal resources and straight-forward techniques. FGL possesses a robust error-handling system that is fully detailed in the online FGL documentation. The TRY/CATCH methodology provides for customizable error trapping and recovery. It specifically identifies the procedure, line number, and error type that occured. A simpler method involves the strategic placement of println( ) statements within your code. Combined with the type( ) function, this method allows for the easy tracking of program execution and interrogation of data elements. The println( ) function routes the output of the paramaters passed directly to a display screen that can be viewed while your program is running. For example: FUNCTION main( ) local a, b, c println( "Begin debugging..." ) InitVariables( ) println( "Variable 'a' is type: " + type( a ) + " with a value = " + a ) println( "Variable 'b' is type: " + type( b ) + " with a value = " + b ) println( "Variable 'b' is type: " + type( c ) + " with a value = " + c ) return( 1 ) END A couple things to keep in mind when debugging Active Pages. First, line numbers do not match up since the page is resolved differently, and secondly, and incidently the most common mistake, you must turn off "AP CACHING" when interactively altering Active Page source files. This is because the server dynamically caches compiled code for optimized content delivery. An additional debugging resource is the use of the CMD.EXE program which is provided free as part of the VM-SDK. This program lets you interactively communicate with the FGL language in the form of a command line interpreter. Additonal debugging tips for TCP/IP interaction and other high-level processes exist which will be discussed in subsequent articles. =============================================================================== THIS WEEK'S REFERRAL: JimTools =============================================================================== Jim Wilson has successfully created a collection of webmaster tools and resources affectionately housed at http://www.jimtools.com These resource includes everything from syntax and spell checker programs to search engine fine tuning and submital systems. Better yet --- he's always adding stuff --- all of which is FREE! Kudo's Mr. Wilson! =============================================================================== This newsletter is the copyrighted material of West Coast Web Adventures, Inc. (c) 2001 by West Coast Web Adventures, Inc., All Rights Reserved. ===============================================================================