By Arnie Keller
Going from Web surfer to Webmaster takes only minutes with Web For One, a $39 personal Web server from ResNova Software Inc. Boasting a slick interface, the product allows anyone with MacTCP (or Open Transport 1.1 or later) and a static Internet Protocol address to start serving documents in about 10 minutes.
Web For One isn't for industrial-strength sites that get thousands of hits a day. But for more modest requirements -- a company intranet or a school's or individual's home page -- things don't get much easier.
The elegant main screen of ResNova's Web For One provides easy access to settings and data-entry windows. It also provides a generous amount of information, including the address of the server.
Breezy start-up
Web For One comprises a pair of applications: a configuration utility that installs in the Control Panels folder, and the server, which runs facelessly in the background.
Web For One uses a template to create pages, so the process is as easy as painting by numbers. We needed to negotiate just three screens to create and serve a home page: one for personal information; another to add favorite URLs; and a third to set a few options for usage logging, remote disk access and page counters. Web For One produced our page, links included, without the need of further HTML editing. The page also included some cool extras. These were a visitor counter, date and time stamps, and site usage statistics. It even told us the address of our machine, a feature that will save newbies much hair-pulling. And it completed all this without requiring knowledge of even the humblest
tag in HTML. Needless to say, Web For One can also serve any page created with standard HTML.
Web For One can generate a Web page showing a list of the serving machine's disk contents sorted by name, size, kind and date. From this list you can select files to download, or -- if your Web browser supports Macintosh Drag and Drop -- you can simply drag the files from the remote Web page to your local Desktop. A simple user name and password routine makes sure unauthorized visitors can't get to your documents.
So easy an adult could do it: Web For One lets users fill in information about themselves (or their company, organization or school). It then inserts the data into a template file to create a home page.
Handy as this feature is, you can't upload files from another machine through Web For One, making true remote site maintenance impossible. That aside, novices will need only rudimentary Macintosh skills to become Webmasters, thanks to Web For One's smooth interface and excellent step-by-step documentation.
While novices won't soon outgrow Web For One, their sites may. With a reasonable amount of HTML, we were able to access the program's advanced features, adding impressive tricks without CGIs (Common Gateway Interfaces). For example, Web For One can recognize hits from different sites and different browsers, so you can vary content by visitor. You can also redirect visitors to other URLs or get values for variables. The online documentation demonstrated features and then displayed the exact HTML that produced them. It was straightforward to edit code from the sample files.
Web For One's power depends on its support for server-side "includes" (server functions the program can perform) to update a visitor counter or insert the date, for example. As you request a page, the program prescans it for special tags. If it finds them, it performs the requested action, generating and serving the appropriate HTML document. The program also supports CGIs, and ResNova has said that future versions will support plug-ins, including perhaps those for StarNine WebStar.
Power demands processing speed, however. We tried Web For One on various machines, including a Power Mac 9500/120 and a venerable Mac IIci. At the upper end, server response was fast; at the lower end, we spent more time than we liked waiting for a reply. To gauge Web For One's speed on your own system, you can download a time-limited demo from ResNova's Web site.
Technical support is available mainly by e-mail or fax. Waits for help varied from a couple of hours to a day.
Conclusions
Web For One will get novices serving pages in minutes, without grief, while advanced users will have ready access to features usually available only with CGIs. Intended for sites that don't receive huge amounts of traffic, Web For One is a fine choice for intranets, individuals and schools. The program's power, however, means that the serving machine must be fast enough to handle Web For One's processing demands. If your site and server match these criteria, Web For One is a terrific buy.
ResNova Software Inc. of Huntington Beach, Calif., can be reached at (714) 379-9000; fax (714) 379-9014; webforone@resnova.com; http://www.resnova.com.
Score card
Web For One
ResNova Software Inc. List price: $39
Hits: Excellent interface and documentation; easy to use; creates and serves Web pages; many powerful features.
Misses: Needs a fast CPU.
Key:
Excellent /
Very good /
Good /
Fair /
Unsatisfactory
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