Goodies to Go ™
March 15, 2004– Newsletter #276

A. Since you will probably have more than one link on a page you should
set up a function in your head section of your document that will be used by
multiple links. You can pass the html page you want to load in the window to the
function when the link is clicked on. With window.open() you can set the
width, height, postion and other attributes. Here is an example:
<script language="javascript"> function OpenWin(linkid)
{ NewWin=window.open (linkid,"newwin",config="width=200,height=250,location=no,status=no,directories=
no,toolbar=no,scrollbars=no,menubar=no,resizable=no,top=30,left=30");
NewWin.focus()
}
</script>
The variable "linkid" contains the page you want to load. This was passed to the
function when the link was clicked on. Then in the body section of your document
your link could look like this:
<A HREF="javascript:OpenWin(‘somepage.html’)">Apples</A>
You would wrap the link around the word that you want to click on for more info.
The HTML Goodies site does have a tutorial on window.open()
(see https://www.htmlgoodies.com/primers/jsp/hgjsp_11.html and https://www.htmlgoodies.com/primers/jsp/hgjsp_12.html
— Ed.)

A. You are going to need some server side coding for this to work. And it
depends on what your server supports. Most hosting packages support some kind of
script to send email from a web form. Most free hosting sites do not. It all
depends on what your server supports. If your server supports Active Server
Pages (ASP) then you can use ASP to send email. If your server supports CGI or
PERL then you can use that to send email.
(Version 6+ Browsers don’t support email forms. See

https://www.htmlgoodies.com/articles/emailforms1.html and

https://www.htmlgoodies.com/articles/emailformphp.html – Ed.)

Q. My server supports CGI, PERL, PHP & MySQL, but not ASP. What is the
easiest way to add a shopping cart capability with credit card processing
capability?

A. You can buy a shopping cart that will run on what your host supports.
First check with your host to make sure that they allow uploading a shopping
cart. Then take a look at this site: http://php.resourceindex.com/Complete_Scripts/Shopping_Carts/
It has a lot of pre-built carts that will run on a server that supports PHP.
They seem fairly inexpensive. Before you buy one, make sure it has everything
you are looking for and if possible, see if they offer a demo for you to try.

Q. I’d like to do is create a template (basically a header and footer) so
that I can update the top and bottom of all my webpages by only altering one
file for each.

A. You can use SSI to include a page at the top and a page at the bottom,
if your server supports this. Take a look at this tutorial: https://www.htmlgoodies.com/beyond/asp.html
About half way down the page it explains SSI and include pages.

Q. I am constantly creating files (pdf or word) files that I need to show
to many co-workers. Instead of having to email everyone everytime I finish a
file, I would like to upload the file to my server and have them view the list
of files online and download the ones they want. These files need to be password
protected as different people in different departments should only see files
pertaining to them. Here was my idea, create a bunch of password protected
folders on a server – one for each department, and I will upload the file to any
folder that should be allowed to view these files. Two questions: 1) I put the
files in a folder, but when I try to view the folder in a browser it tells me I
don’t have permission to access this folder (I assume because I never created an
index file). How can I set it up that I should be able to view a list of files
that are in the folder? 2) how can I create a page that will allow me to upload
files to folders using a browser?

A. I believe you are correct in that you do not have an INDEX file for
the server to show when you try to access the folder. You could create an INDEX
file with the links to the documents for downloading. I am assuming that you
have already password protected the folder? An even easier way would be to use a
password log in feature for your pages. The application would allow users to
sign up themselves and you would control which group the user should be in and
only the documents or files you allow each group or person to view. There is a
nice web application called ASPLogin. It has to run on a server that supports
ASP. For example, to make a document available to all users in a group called
‘management’, members of a group called ‘administrators’ and a user called ‘fred’
(who may or may not be in either of the groups), you would add the following
code to the top of the document:
<%@ LANGUAGE=VBScript %>
<%
Set asplObj=Server.CreateObject("ASPL.Login")
asplObj.Group("management")
asplObj.Group("administrators")
asplObj.User("Fred")
asplObj.Protect
Set asplObj=Nothing
%>
Any other group or person trying to see that document will not be allowed to see
it. It is a pretty slick application You can take a look here: http://www.asplogin.com
To create a page to allow you to upload documents would call for some scripting.
This all depends on what type of server you site is hosted on. If it is a
Windows server then it will support Active Server Pages (ASP).

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