Web Bots 1

[stormbind]

Hi all,

I do not have or use Frontpage but if I recall correctly, there used to be a basic Microsoft WYSIWYG editor that shipped with Windows 9x and it also had Web Bots.

My question is, is it possible to activate the web bots by editing HTML source?

i.e. Do front page extensions parse files, and do they look for comments that might look something like: <!-- webbot=&quot;counter&quot; --> ?

Thanks very much for reading. Here's hoping you can help me!

 

[CoreyBryant]

You cannot create web bots yourself. The pages have to be uploaded via FP, and the server has to have FP extensions enabled. Once you FTP into a site you can corrupt the extensions.

Plus when a page is created in FP, another page is created as well (you only see this page when you go into explorer). This is also where some information is stored.

__________________________
Corey

http://www.merchantaccounts4less.com

 

[stormbind]

I don't want to create my own, I just want the files parsed by the server for FP Web Bots.

Just remembered the name of the free Microsoft WYSIWYG HTML editor - it's called FrontPage Express and has only 3 Web Bots.

There are two save options:
1) Web Post (

http://)

2) Save to file

This is what I found:
1) Error: Could not web post! It didn't even ask for a password?
2) *.htm

That lone *.htm shows the Web Bots as comments, a lot like Apache SSI but when I uploaded this file - it seems the server is not parsing it for FrontPage Web Bots.

I think I should be able to do what I need with this software but I'm completely lost. How do you Web Post?

The server does have FrontPage extensions installed.

 

[stormbind]

Sorry CoreyBryant, you were wrong.

This is what I did. I treated the Web Bot comments exactly as SSI comments - writing them in notepad.exe

I uploaded my regular HTML file (with Web Bot comments) to my web server via the Windows Web Folders. Went to the web page and the bots were working 100%.

In conclusion, FrontPage is not required to use FrontPage Extensions. It's a revelation!

I have been searching the web for a solid 24 hours seeking the above information and every site I visited said &quot;You Require FrontPage&quot;.

This industry is riddled with misinformation, perpetuated by common misconceptions, and it's rather annoying.

I hope this information is of use to readers but I doubt it is as anyone reading here will most likely have purchased FrontPage. Oh well.

 

[CoreyBryant]

Are you uploading via FrontPage express or via FTP?

__________________________
Corey

http://www.merchantaccounts4less.com

 

[CoreyBryant]

I do not think that your question was that clear. I knew you were speaking of FP express, but it was not clear at what you were trying to accomplish. You will need to upload your files via FP for some of the components to work:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;281532&Product=fp2002

otherwise, they will not work.

__________________________
Corey

http://www.merchantaccounts4less.com

 

[stormbind]

I uploaded via a Windows Web Folder. Network Connections > Create New Connection >

http://www.mysite.com

You were right about them not working if you upload via ftp, which is also available through Create New Connection.

Minimum requirements:
notepad.exe
FP extensions
http:// upload

There may be some bots that will not work: I can only test the bots that I know the syntax for

 

[stormbind]

The link you provided does not appear to be relevant.

QUOTE: Some components in Microsoft FrontPage 2002 require that the FrontPage 2002 Server Extensions be installed on the server to which your Web is published. This article lists the components that require the FrontPage 2002 Server Extensions.

The web host has FP Extensions installed. The question was, did I actually need to purchased FP to make use of those extensions.

And the answer appears to be NO.

 

[CoreyBryant]

Well it depends on what bots / components you are wanting to use. if you want to use FP forms - the answer is yes. That page will tell you what components (web bots) can be used on what servers.

__________________________
Corey

http://www.merchantaccounts4less.com

 

[stormbind]

The situation is, my ISP has FP Extension 2002. I do not have FrontPage. I have installed FrontPage Express which taught me a little about the Web Bot syntax.

What I desperately need is the web bot 'counter' - the one that displays the number of times a page has been viewed. I do not have it yet :/

I have tested: Include, Search and TimeStamp only. These are the web bots supported by FP Express. Pretty neat

I did not upload with FP Express - it is faulty and doesn't ask for the site password. I uploaded with Windows Web Folders which is available to anyone, with or without any version of FP installed.

 

[stormbind]

Actually, that may be wrong.

I don't yet know if bot=&quot;Counter&quot; will do as I hope. The requirement is to open the log file containing the value from another page.

For this, I may need a bot that saves a value to text files intead. And increment the text value by some other means, i.e. Javascript.

 

[CoreyBryant]

I have not used FP express since about 1997, but let me tell you about FP 2K / FP XP. When you create a file, it creates other files with the same name.

Now I have one client that insists on using the FP component - hit counter. I reviewed that page & the file that is created under _vti_cnf. It then reference another file that it creates in _private called: default1.htm.cnt & this is where it writes the number & pulls the correct number when default1.htm is called.

__________________________
Corey

http://www.merchantaccounts4less.com

 

[stormbind]

excellent. thanks

will be back if it doesn't work though

 

[stormbind]

Cannot run the FrontPage Server Extensions on this page: &quot;

http://&quot;

I get this error for &quot;some&quot; pages but I cannot find a pattern. I get the same error for &quot;some&quot; pages created exclusively with FPE.

The only thing common to the pages that fail is that they are small (i.e. under 500 bytes) - ever experienced anything like that?

 

[CoreyBryant]

Well, I have ran into that problem because the FP extensions were corrupted.

__________________________
Corey

http://www.merchantaccounts4less.com

 

[stormbind]

Mayhaps, it's very aggressive and keeps &quot;correcting&quot; things I don't want it to correct!

Example page using SSI. The SHTML parsing engine cuts out the comment and pastes the date. Now Javascript has an accurate source of time

var time=('<!--#echo var=&quot;DATE_GMT&quot; -->');

But when I do the same thing with FrontPage, it fails. Even if I use the Microsoft editor to create the page it fails! It insists on destroying the javascript by adding HTML tags. I find it very disempowering.

var time=('<!--webbot bot=&quot;Timestamp&quot; startspan
s-type=&quot;REGENERATED&quot; s-format=&quot;%d %b %Y %H:%M:%S&quot; -->30 Nov 2003 16:54:22<!--webbot
bot=&quot;Timestamp&quot; i-checksum=&quot;29279&quot; endspan -->');

 

[CoreyBryant]

It is probably because the other file that FP creates to read is not there. When you create a file in FP, FP creates another file to read information from. But that information is not there.

When FP express was &quot;invented&quot; - a lot of the coding that you are doing was not even available. It did not know that it could have an HTML page without the HTML tags.

__________________________
Corey

http://www.merchantaccounts4less.com