Version 2.1


NetCloak

User's Guide


"Dynamic Web Sites...

...No Programming Required"


Serving "Cloaked" Files

Each of the HTML pages you create using NetCloak commands must be processed by NetCloak, or "cloaked". If your server uses suffix mappings and Action-based CGIs, cloaked files are recognized by a file name extension (a period and a few characters that appear at the end of the file name).

If your server does not support action-based CGIs, you will need to add a command to your URLs to tell the Web server that NetCloak must process the document. Simply add "/NetCloak.acgi$" between the server name and document path in URLs. For example:

http://your.server.com/myFolder/pageone.html

…would become…

http://your.server.com/NetCloak.acgi$/myFolder/pageone.html

…to specify that the page be cloaked.

For servers (such as WebSTAR) that support action-based CGI execution, the file name extension that denotes a cloaked document can be anything. However, the NetCloak CGI can automatically configure the server to cloak files that end with either ".html" or ".nclk". To configure your server to serve documents with either of these file name extensions using the NetCloak CGI, simply pull down the "Auto-Process" menu and select either "All '.HTML' Files" or "All '.NCLK' Files". To cloak files with other extensions, you will need to configure your server manually. See your Web server software documentation for additional details on creating "Suffix Mappings".

Cloaking With The NetCloak Plug-In

When using the W*API plug-in, NetCloak will automatically register itself as an action, but you will need to use WebSTAR Admin to manually set the suffix mapping in order to cloak pages with ".html" or another suffix. NetCloak will automatically process ".nclk" files, but the ".html" suffix is intentionally left for you to manually configure in order to avoid conflicting with other processes you might have running on your server.

Serving All HTML Files Through NetCloak

All of your HTML documents probably already have filenames that end in ".html". So, configuring the Web server to send all ".html" files through NetCloak will cause all of your existing pages to be "cloaked". All of your pages might not use NetCloak commands, but there is no harm in having them cloaked. By choosing to cloak all ".html" files, you can use the NetCloak extension commands on your server at will, and never worry about whether or not they will be processed correctly.

Serving Selected Files Through NetCloak

If you prefer to have NetCloak process only certain documents, you may choose to have only ".nclk" files cloaked. With this option, any file that has a file name ending in ".nclk" may contain NetCloak commands. The other HTML files on your server will be processed directly by your Web server. You may, of course, choose another suffix for HTML documents and configure that suffix instead.

Remember that the NetCloak Plug-In version automatically configures the suffix ".nclk" in WebSTAR to be cloaked.

Uninstalling NetCloak

If you are using NetCloak with WebSTAR, you can have NetCloak reset your server's suffix mappings. Simply select either "Reset '.HTML' Files" or "Reset '.NCLK' Files" (whichever is appropriate) from the "Auto-Process" menu to have the Suffix Mappings reset so that pages will be processed directly by the server.

If you are using another Web server that supports action-based CGIs, consult your Web server manual for instructions on how to change the suffix mappings back to their default settings.

Cloaked File Limitations

Due to limitations in how CGIs interact with the server, the NetCloak CGI is limited to a file size of 60k bytes. All files larger than 60k will be truncated by the CGI before they are passed to the server. In some cases, even 60k may be too much data for your server to handle in a single request. If you notice system crashes or other problems on large files (over 32k), visit the Maxum FAQ and technical support area at "www.maxum.com" for up-to-date information on handling large files.

The NetCloak plug-in is capable of handling substantially larger files, and the maximum file size for the plug-in is 128k. Up-to-date information on handling files even larger than this is available on the Maxum Web site at "www.maxum.com".

Cloaked File Security

Since NetCloak processes your documents on the server, text or links that you have hidden with NetCloak commands are not present in the documents after they are served. This makes it impossible for users to use a "View Source" command in their browser to see what you have hidden.

How NetCloak Works

NetCloak provides new commands to the HTML document language that turn your static pages into dynamic ones. Pages that can change on the fly depending on the criteria you choose. While these extensions to HTML are non-standard, they are processed entirely on your Web server, so they work with any web browser.

The NetCloak extension commands allow you to display information specific to the client or the server at the time the document is being processed. The extensions also allow you to show and hide any individual portion of your document.

NetCloak's <INSERT> commands will place dynamic information into your documents supplied by the browser, your server or your users themselves.

For example, with the simple command <INSERT_REFERRER>, you can tell the user where they came from, as in:

How did you like visiting <INSERT_REFERRER>?

To understand building completely dynamic pages, think of your document as a stream of information being sent through a faucet (your Web server) to the client. NetCloak allows you to turn off (<HIDE>) and turn on (<SHOW>) this stream at will.

For example, the following cloaked text:

This is a <HIDE> trivial <SHOW> test.

Would appear on a web browser as:

This is a test.

There are more interesting variations of <INSERT>,<SHOW> and <HIDE> for turning the stream off and on conditionally, which we will get into soon (See the "Commands" section for details).

Turning off and turning on (hiding and showing) portions of your HTML document is not limited only to text. HTML links which load graphics, point to other pages, etc., can be turned off and turned on as well. All this gives you complete control over how your document looks and behaves in a variety of situations.


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