Tips on Creating A Serverless Intranet

Tips on Creating A Serverless Intranet

By Paul E. Schindler Jr.
CD Editor

Next to the Internet, the hottest thing going is the Intranet, an internal network for communication and information dissemination. An Intranet contains text and graphics files based on the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) which can be viewed with the ubiquitous web browsers, such as Netscape or Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

Many people think an Intranet must have a server, and use the same hardware and software as an Internet node. That is only partially true. You need a server if you are planning to offer a full plate of services on your Intranet: forms, CGI scripts, image maps, counters, the ability to tell what kind of browser a user has, or the ability to collect statistics about which pages have been visited and how often. If these functions are critical to you, then you need a server for your Intranet.

But be certain that the benefits outweigh the costs. You will need to invest in server hardware and software. If you aren't running an Internet node already, you'll find yourself at the bottom of a learning curve, developing yet another skill set, with yet another kind of system to maintain. That can translate into a fairly substantial time cost.

If all you really want is to create useful, good-looking pages for use strictly by internal personnel, and you already have a network with shared files, you have all you need for a serverless Intranet. I know, because the Windows CD-ROM Magazine is basically a serverless Intranet. In two years of editing this CD-ROM, I have learned a few useful, but sparsely documented, tricks about local browsing. Frankly, few people, including authors of HTML books, have given much thought to use of browsers for local browsing on a hard disk.

Setting up an Intranet is laughably easy. Simply create a directory on a shared drive on your network. Then author a home page (usually named DEFAULT.HTM). Have your users create an icon for this page by using drag and drop. First, they select the file in either Explorer or File Manager. Then they drag a copy onto the desktop. In Windows 95, single click on the name to rename the icon. In Windows 3.1, click on the icon in Program Manager, and select file/properties from the Program Manager menu to rename it.

The Tips

Here are some tips on creating and using a Serverless Intranet:

Getting Around. Many people have never used their browser locally. A few simple steps, though, will get them moving through your Intranet with ease. In Netscape, select File/Open and you will be shown a file selection dialog. In Internet Explorer, select File/Open and click the browse button to see a file selection dialog. In both cases, network drives should appear as a choice in the drive selection box. If you have your users create an icon by dragging it out of Explorer or File Manager, they may never need to use File/Open. However, power users may wish to navigate your Intranet directly, rather than through links
Don't get too far around. Beware: Using the File/Open in your browser after you've followed relative links around the Intranet can cause problems. Your relative links may stop working because the active Windows drive sometimes changes. The fastest way to fix this is to close the browser and restart on the home page. Prevention is the best medicine, though, so its better to just not use File/Open while you are navigating your serverless Intranet.
See something you like? Borrow the code. This is one of the best things about HTML authoring. When you see a cool trick, all you have to do is look under the hood at the source code, and you can usually duplicate the trick. Don't assume that you can transfer code from the Internet onto your Intranet, though. Internet code often doesn't work when you are using your browser locally. The best way to find out if code will work is to copy it, resolve any file references to local references, then view it in the browser and see if it works. If you see anything on this CD-ROM, feel free to borrow it since any HTML code found here will work on an Intranet.

The Tricks

For purposes of this discussion, we'll use the file structure of the Winmag CD, and actual file names from this CD; simply switch to File Manager or Explorer to see that structure. From there, you be able to practice these tricks and make them your own.

Handling Hypertext Links. You can have both local references and Web references on your Intranet in a single file. A local reference looks like this:

<A HREF="/library/default.htm">This is the table of contents</a>

Your Web reference should read as follows:

<A HREF="http://www.winmag.com/software">This is the WinMag Web Software Page</A>

Technically, HTML requires a local file reference to appear like this:

<a href="file://filename.htm#A1">Text goes here</a>

However, different browsers require different numbers of slashes; if you are going to support a multi-browser environment, I find the simple reference works best:

<a href="filename.htm#A1">Text goes here</a>
Keep the link alive. If you launch your browser pointing to a local file, no link is established to the Internet. If you then click on an Internet reference (as opposed to a local file reference), you will experience some delay if your access is via a Dial-up link. If you have no Internet access, you will see an error message. On the Winmag CD, we place a warning about this on the box, at the bottom of our home page and at the top of our welcome page. You'll want to insure that new users understand the difference between local and Internet references.
No Internet access? No problem. You do not have to have Internet access in order to run an Intranet. This CD-ROM contains Internet Explorer 2.0 and 3.0 for Windows 95 as well as Internet Explorer 2.0 for Windows 3.1; you can find the locations and installation instructions here.

Note: Windows 95 has a built-in TCP/IP stack.

In order to use IE 2.0 for Windows 3.1 without an Internet Service provider, you'll need to:

Make sure you don't already have a WINSOCK.DLL in your WINDOWS directory.
Copy the "dummy" WINSOCK.DLL from the \IEXPLORE.31 directory on this CD-ROM to the WINDOWS directory on your hard disk.

Resolve your own references. A hypertext link to a regular Internet site can consist of the site and the directory (www.winmag.com/software in the example above, rather than www.winmag.com/software/default.htm) since the server will resolve it. You don't have a server, so the reference will not resolve itself. If you create a hypertext link like this on your Intranet:

<a href="/library">This is the Table of Contents</a>

your browser will display the directory structure, not the DEFAULT.HTM file.
Use your directory structure. You might be tempted to place everything in one big directory. Avoid this temptation. Manage your Serverless Intranet the same way that you would ideally manage your own hard disk: with functional directories that contain related files. Create a graphics directory that contains the .GIF files shared by all your HTM files, rather than placing copies all over the disk.
Create relative references. This is an area upon which all of my Internet source works are absolutely silent. On top of that, no amount of fiddling with your browser will make dealing with relative references obvious. You cannot use absolute references to local files because a) you generally do not know what drive letter has been assigned to a shared drive by a user and even if you do, it may change and b) acceptable drive letter syntax varies between browsers. When the first HTML version of this CD-ROM was under construction, it appeared that I would have to maintain two complete sets of files, one for Internet Explorer and one for Netscape. Then, on another HTML CD-ROM, I found the answer: relative references, using the old DOS standard of two periods to move up a level in the directory.

Here is an example. Suppose you are working with a file in the \LIBRARY directory and you wish to refer to a file in the \LIBRARY\1996\1096 subdirectory. The hypertext link can look like either of these:
<A HREF="../library/1996/1096/default.htm#A1">October 1996</A>
<A HREF="1996/1096/default.htm#A1">October</A>

In the first case, the "../" returns to the root directory, which is one level up from the library directory, then specifies the complete path back down. In the second case, as long as there is no slash in front of 1996 (/1996/1096...), the browser starts in the current directory and works down. This CD-ROM uses the first form because it has proven more reliable. I have not yet done thorough testing with the second syntax since the latest revisions of the major browsers. My basic philosophy: if it isn't broken, don't fix it.

One more example. Suppose you have a file in the \LIBRARY\1996\1096 directory that needs to reference a graphic in the \GRAPHICS directory. The syntax is:
<IMG SRC="../../../graphics/xwmmain.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="Return To Home"></A>

Note that the reference begins with "../../../", to move up three levels in the directory structure, followed by /graphics and then the file name. This syntax also usually works:
<IMG SRC="/graphics/xwmmain.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="Return To Home"></A>

Although this second form is simpler to remember and write, I have found it less reliable in the past.
Separate the big graphics. Using an Intranet, you can access an HTML file at network speeds rather than Internet speeds, but don't use this as an excuse to place huge inline graphics into a file. Browsers still need to load up and display graphics. Keep your Serverless Intranet operating quickly and smoothly by placing your larger graphics in separate files. We do this on both our WinMag web site and on the Windows CD-ROM Magazine. For an example, see the files 103CO3.HTM and 10C03.HTM in the \LIBRARY\1996\1096\ directory of this CD-ROM.
Fake an image map. A Serverless Intranet has no intelligence to handle image maps. You can simulate their function by placing small graphics-based links next to each other, or in a borderless table against a patterned background. The CD-ROM header section of virtually any .HTM file in the \LIBRARY directory of this CD-ROM demonstrates this concept.
Take care if you write an install program. Perhaps you are the kind of person that would rather write an install program than issue written instructions to your users on how to drag an HTM file to the desktop. Bully for you. Just be aware that Netscape and Internet Explorer do not use the same command line syntax for opening local files. Also consider that some users have both browsers installed, so detection may not be enough. Instead, you may want to offer them the chance to choose which browser they wish to use when looking at your Intranet.
Execute, don't download. Not surprisingly, browsers were designed for use on the Internet, where even the fastest downloads are too slow so that the best strategy for viewing a file is to copy it onto your local hard drive first. Not surprisingly, this doesn't make a lot of sense when you are accessing a local network over a reliable (one hopes) link. Plus, there is literally no way to run an .EXE file from a browser.

Thus, if you place a link to a sound file on your Serverless Intranet:
<a href="paul.wav">Click here to hear the editor's message</a>

the entire .WAV or .AVI file (all 4-, 5- or even 10MB of it) will be downloaded to the local drive if you leave it up to the browser to decide what to do with the file based on its Helper Application (Netscape) or Registry (Internet Explorer) information.

For a faster response, and the ability to run executable files directly from your browser, you can use a piece of Winmag freeware located on this CD-ROM called WMLAUNCH.EXE. You can find the program, along with a sample .WML file, in the \WMLAUNCH directory of this CD-ROM. We offer no support for this software. You can find examples of its use all over this CD-ROM. Simply copy WMLAUNCH.EXE to the same shared network drive as your Intranet.

First of all, WMLAUNCH can run an executable file directly from your browser, something the browser itself cannot do. Secondly, you may wish to use it to view large binary files, such as .AVI files and .WAV files. Using the program, these files can be streamed from the network drive, rather than copied and stored locally, in order to save local disk space and vastly improve response time.

Warning: Do NOT use a file type of .WM for WMLAUNCH files on your Intranet. If you do, the WINDOWS CD-ROM Magazine will stop functioning properly. To allow it to work properly, you need a different file type (for example, .WML) than we use on the CD-ROM and a copy of WMLAUNCH on your shared network drive.

In order for WMLAUNCH.EXE to work properly, you need to set up your browser (the CD-ROM installation program does this automatically for the copy on the CD-ROM):

If you are using Netscape or Internet Explorer 2.0 for Windows 3.1, set up a helper application inside Netscape. Assign the file type .WML to the network copy of WMLAUNCH.EXE.
If you are using Internet Explorer, associate the network copy of WMLAUNCH.EXE with a file type of .WML in the Windows Explorer (Windows 95) or within Internet Explorer itself (Windows 3.1).

Full text search possibility. Normally, you need a server in order to do full text searches. Windows Magazine commissioned the writing of an indexed, serverless full text search engine for this CD-ROM. The author of the program is considering creating a commercial version both for servers and for Intranets. For more information, you can write or e-mail:

Mr. Robert Frantz
Cognitronix
12642 Poway Rd. Ste. 16-120
Poway, CA 92064
800-217-0932 or 619-549-8955
Fax: 619-549-8327
76306.402@compuserve.com

Contact him directly (do NOT contact Windows Magazine) if you are interested in such a product.