This topic discusses additional FlashConnect features.
w3Rotator
Use w3Rotator to employ dynamic content rotation in Web pages (for example, rotating banner advertisements).
Any space designated for Web content (not just graphic images) can be filled using w3Rotator. Additional functionality is provided to facilitate maintenance of the list of images available for presentation. For additional information, refer to the FlashConnect Programmer’s Online Reference.
User Profiling
Profiling is typically of value only for applications that require users to log on. Profiling enables automatically entering the user’s username and password. Users can be required to re-enter their username and password if they have not used the application for a specified time period.
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NOTE |
There is a difference between setting w3ClosingPage to !url and user profiling. Setting w3ClosingPage to !url and logging off causes the logon screen to redisplay. However, with profiling enabled, the logon screen is automatically entered and the application’s first page displays. Therefore, the user cannot cleanly log off from the application. |
The w3ProfileId variable helps identify whether a browser has previously used a FlashConnect site by placing a unique retrievable identifier (cookie) in each browser using the application.
Subsequently, each time the browser accesses the FlashConnect site, the w3ProfileId is retrieved and made available to the application. In addition, each entry in the w3Logs file is stamped with the w3ProfileId active at that time.
A limitation for using w3ProfileId is that if the user disables or modifies cookies on their browser, profiling will not work properly, and the value of w3ProfileId can be misleading.
The w3ProfileId value contained in named common is either the value of the w3ProfileId cookie retrieved from the user’s system, or the value to which it is set when the current Web page is sent to them.
The value of w3ProfileId retrieved using w3GetCGI is the value of the cookie on the user’s system.
Therefore, it is impossible for FlashConnect to distinguish the difference between a user who has never seen a FlashConnect Web page from the site, and someone who has disabled cookies on their system.
To prevent users from guessing valid w3ProfileId values and logging on as someone else, each ProfileId value is uniquely created. The w3ProfileId expiration date is 365 days after it was last updated.
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NOTE |
U.S. Government regulations may prohibit the use of cookies for companies providing Web-based information and services for the U.S. Government. To disable cookies, the subroutine w3ProfileGetId must be modified to return a null Profile ID. If this is done, WWW-IRUN does not send a w3ProfileId cookie to the browser and profiling is disabled for that application. |
Templates
A template is a D3 item that contains HTML code (usually an entire page or often used segments). Templates allow for exceptionally dynamic HTML code. Application defined text, or flags, are placed in the item. These flags can consist of any text (the preferred pattern is ##VAL## where # is any punctuation character and VAL is any alpha numeric text). At run time, flags are replaced with the dynamic text specified by the application.
When the final Web page is presented to the user’s browser, it contains the static code and text of the template, and the run-time material generated by the application. This allows alteration of the user interface, often with little or no changes to the Pick BASIC code.
The w3TemplateFileChange function changes the file from which templates are retrieved by all FlashConnect subroutines including w3HtmlInit() and w3HtmlInsert(). The syntax is:
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w3TemplateFileChange(filename, status) |
The new template file takes effect immediately and remains in effect until either the next application starts, or the template file is changed via another call to w3TemplateFileChange. Cached templates, such as those cached by w3HtmlInsert(), do not change until the templates are reloaded. The programmer must ensure the appropriate FlashConnect templates (such as system.headfoot.htm and logon.headfoot.htm) are included in each template source file.
The function w3TemplateFileName returns the name of the current template file. The syntax is:
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w3TemplateFileName(filename) |
See Programmer’s Online Reference for more detail on these functions.
See Also