Names of current entry items
This is where you name the items a DB entry should contain. For example, if
you try to make an addressbook, you might enter "*name,e-mail,telephone,web
site,image,status,hits,birthday,comment,time stamp,*password" here. The
"*" indicates this is an item that must be filled in when the DB
entry is added or changed. The total of the items in a DB entry cannot exceed
39. You should separate each item with a "," and do not leave spaces
between "," and item names. Usually you would want to make the first
item required. A very important note!
Type of current entry items
Here the data type of the DB entry items are indicated. For example, for the
above example, the data types may be "string,string,phone,string,string,string,number,time,string,time,string",
where telephone item takes the data type of "phone", hits item takes
the type of "number", time stamp item takes "time" while
all others take "string" as their data type. string,number,time,phone
are the only 4 types supported so far in POD 5.0. You should indicate all
the data types for each of the item you named in 1.
How much storage space (in characters) should each current item have in
DB
Here you indicates at most how much space can each item take in your DB. You
should try to plan efficiently here and do not allocate huge storage that
are not needed. For example, if you allocate "400" for name item,
it sure is allowed, but you probably wasted at least 350 characters in your
DB. Please note that the speed of POD is directly related to the size of the
DB file. In fact, the speed of DB is limited by how fast your hard drive allows
it to read the DB file. An excessively big DB file will slow down your DB
significantly. One thing you should note is that for items of number data
type, the storage shouldn't be more than 11 because the number data type should
not be longer than 10 characters (in fact, you should make it smaller than
10 or else you should use string as data type. For this reason, it is better
that you use "string" as the type for ISBN number--10 characters
long--for books, not "number" as type. This way in fact ISBN number
should be sorted correctly), and an extra one character is needed for each
item. Therefore if you indicate "40" for an item, that item can
at most store 39 characters' worth of data. You should indicate all the storage
sizes for each of the item you named in 1. You should allow 20 characters
for any item to be used as time stamp. Any item longer than specified length
will be automatically truncated when they are submitted to POD and an indication
will show up in browser. If this happened during converion of DB item schema,
it will be reported as well.
Names of previous entry items & How much storage space was allowed for
previous entry items?
This option is used when you convert DB schema. If, after you used DB for
a while and found that you forgot to add an item in, and left too little storage
space for one item, you can specify the new item name and storage settings
in 1 and 3, and specify the original item name and storage settings in these
two options. Then you check the checkbox "Convert to new items next time
POD is run?". The next time POD is run, the conversion will automatically
happen before any other operation is performed, thereby completing the conversion
of DB schema. If you do not check that check box, the program will not convert
even if your current items differ from previous items.
How much can can the waste entries occupy (20-80 %) before the DB compresses
itself?
When an entry is deleted from DB by POD, the entry does not physically disappear
for performance reasons. It is only marked as deleted. Occasionally, DB needs
to be compressed to get rid of the wasted space occupied by these deleted
entries. In this option, you can specify when DB is compressed. Entering 20
here means when number of deleted entry exceeds 20% of total number of entries,
the POD will automatically compresses the DB for you.
File Options Configuration
File Path:
Database HTML File URL (e.g. http://Myserver/DB.html)
Here you specify what is your the URL of your database entrance page. This
URL is used only when error happens and POD generates an automatic link
back to your database main page. If no error happens, your user should not
see this URL used, therefore the value you entered here is not crucial to
POD function.
DB Program URL (e.g. http://MySever/cgi-bin/DB.exe)
Here you specify what is your the URL of your database program (POD). For
example, if you renamed POD program from fldb.exe to myDB.exe, and put the
program into your web server's cgi-bin, which has URL as http://MyServer.com/cgi-bin,
then the URL that should be put here is http://MyServer.com/cgi-bin/myDB.exe.
This URL is used intensively by POD and is crucial to the correct function
of POD, so please take care entering the info here correctly.
URL of Help File for Remote Administration
This URL is where you put this help file at. For example, you may have put
this one at http://MyServer.com/MyDirectory/OldbHelp.html. This URL is only
used by fldbconf.exe to generate a dynamic help link. It is not crucial
to the function of POD or fldbconf.exe.
Hide Files checkbox
If you check this box, POD will automatically set fldb.ini, fldb.log, fldb.txt
to "hidden" file attributes. This will prevent www users from
reading content of those files directly on some web servers. However, it
may also make it impossible to ftp your updated file
Contact:
Webmaster E-Mail Address
This e-mail address is only used when error happens and POD generates an
automatic link to your email address. If no error happens, your user should
not see this email address used, therefore the value you entered here is
not crucial to POD function.
Output File Options Configuration
Conversion Options
Input CSV file path
This is the absolute path of the csv (comma separated value) file that is
to be converted to the format recognized by POD. This is used when you have
previously used another database program and you want to convert it to POD
DB format. You first export your previous DB for csv format, and then specify
the path here. Please note that you need to run conversion.exe to convert
the csv file. conversion.exe can be launched without a web server and its
instructions are here.
Output format
Here you specify the data in the csv files belong to which items of your
new DB. For example, your csv file is composed of lines like "Bob,800-888-8888,Ph.D",
then you might wish to put "name,telephone,status" here because
these are the entry items names (assigned in DB Entry Info configuration
option 1) those data should belong to.
Separation character
For csv files, it is comma ",". If your original DB file is separated
by, say, "|", then put "|" here (without the quotation
mark of course).
Output CSV Files:
Use CSV output file?
POD lets you use csv output file to summarize the entries in your DB. You
can select a few items to be displayed in csv output file, which can then
be analyzed or imported by other softwares. However, you should note that
if your DB is big, this csv file can become quite big too. Producing this
csv file may therefore pose a significant performance penalty. Do not use
it unless you have to. At least, do not use it all the time if your DB is
big. Turn this option on and then make a modification to an entry will cause
POD to produce the csv file, then you can turn it off to improve performance.
This csv file will be produced in the same directory where your configuration
and DB files are.
Items to be displayed (in desired sequence)
Specify what items you want displayed in the csv file. Put a "*"
in front of the item means that items's name should be included in the exported
csv file. e.g. If you specifiy "Name,*E-mail". An entry with name as "John
Smith" and E-mail as "john@com" will produce "John Smith,E-Mail: john@com"
in csv file.
Name of the item to be used for sorting CSV file
Here you can specify one item by which the CSV will be sorted. If you add
a "*" in front of the name of that item, it means you want the output
to be in descend order instead of the default ascending order.
Password Options Configuration
Use Password to Protect Your Database? (Passwords should be shorter than
the length you designated for password item!!)
If you do not check this box, POD will disregard any password in this section.
Therefore if you want to use password to protect any database operation, you
should check this box.
Password for searching database
Here you specify the password the user must enter to be able to search your
database. If you do not want to protect this operation, leave it empty.
Password for changing entries
Here you specify the password the user must enter to be able to change or
delete entries in your database. If you do not want to protect these two operations,
leave it empty.
Password for adding entries
Here you specify the password the user must enter to be able to add an entry
to your database. If you do not want to protect this operation, leave it empty.
Password is case sensitive?
Check this box if all the passwords used are case-sensitive. Uncheck it otherwise.
User set his/her own password?
Check this box to let user enter their own passwords when they add an entry
to your database. Later they will be able to use that password to change or
delete their own entries, but they will not be able to change or delete any
other people's entries.
Master password (overrides user-defined password)
With this password, you will be able to override any user's own password and
perform any operations you want. However, you should beware that once you
use master password to override a user's own password, the password stored
in his/her entry will be replaced by the master password and the original
password is lost. Also do not let any user get access to this password for
obvious security concerns.
Search & Time Options Configuration
Search Options:
At most how many entries should POD return as result for a search?
During a search, POD will try to find all entries in the DB that contain the
query string. However, this may not be always desired as some users enter
an empty query string to display the whole DB, or some short query string
may produce too many hit entries. When you DB is big, searching and/or displaying
the whole DB could be a time-consuming operation, therefore you can limit
the maximum number of entries POD will return during a search. POD quits searching
once it finds as many entries as specified by this number. Please note that
if you set this number to be 1 or less, POD will use 2 for efficiency in concurrency
handling for large databases. Also I see no reason why you would limit each
search to return at most 1 entry or less!
How many entries found in a search are to be displayed per page?
You can divide displaying entries found during a search up to different pages
to keep html file small enough to be transmitted quickly to users of your
DB. The number you enter here indicates how many entries should be displayed
on one page. If you specify 20, and POD finds 65 in a search, it will display
the first page which contains the first 20 entries, and provides links to
the other 3 pages, the last of which contains only 5 entries.
How many many links to other pages are to be displayed on each page?
This defines how many pages to be displayed per section (one section is defined
as the collection of the pages displayed between <prev page> and <next
page> links). If you put 10 here, it means a maximum of links to 10 pages
will be display on one page. If your search returned 23 pages, and you defined
10 here, the first displayed search result page will have page index from
1 to 10 (with page 1 as the current page), and if you follow "Next"
link, you will get to pages from 11 to 20 (with page 11 as the current page)
....
Time Stamp Options:
Use time stamp in database
If any item in your DB is a time stamp item, check this box.
Name of the time stamp items are
Put any item that should be considered a time stamp item here. Put a "*"
in front of the name of the item indicates that the value of this item should
be entered by user. The default time stamp is entered by POD using the current
system time.
Name of the master time stamp item is
When you specify that entries of your DB should expire and be deleted after
a certain period, there should be only one time stamp out of all time stamp
items that should be checked for item's expiration. The name of that time
stamp is indicated here as master time stamp.
Time stamps display format, respectively (0-4)
The format by which the time stamps should be displayed. You should enter
as many values here as you entered in 1. Note that in 1 you enter the names
of the time stamp items, but here you enter a number for each of the time
stamp items. The number must be between 1 to 4. The explanation of the format
the number stands for is below:
1: mm/dd/yyyy
2: Abbreviated day of week name, mm/dd/yy
3: mm/dd/yyyy, hh:mm
4: mm/dd/yy, hh:mm am/pm
Please note that if, say, you specified format 4 for a time stamp item whose
value should be entered by user, that user must use format 4 to enter the
value to have POD correctly recognize the format and store the time value
correctly. Or else POD will simply store the string user entered, and this
string will not be sorted correctly. You should display the format information
to your user if you let them enter the time stamp value themselves.
Life span of entries in days (e.g. 20. 0 means never expire)
With this choice, any item that is this number of days older than current
time will get deleted. This provides a way to let old entries expire by themselves.
If you do not want any entry in your DB to get expired any time, enter 0 here.
Remote Administration Configuration
Please note that when you configure DB remotely
through DBAdmin.html, you should not be able to configure any options in the section
of the .ini configuration file. I include this here just in case you want to configure
these options manually in the .ini file.
Enable remote administration
Set this choice to "1" if you want to administer DB options remotely
through DBAdmin.html. Set it to "0" if you do not wish so. It is
encouraged that you set it to "1".
Administration password
The password for administer DB options remotely through DBAdmin.html.
Administration help page URL
This is where you put the help page (actually, this page) on your web server.
If the URL of this page on your server is "http://myserver/OldbHelp.html",
put it in here.
Report Options Configuration
Please note that it is your reponsibility to make
sure that you (your web server) have the clearance to send e-mail with the SMTP
server address you provide below. If authorization fails for POD to send email
through your SMTP server, POD has no convenient way to inform you of this problem
and will NOT report an "authorization failure" message.
Use hit counting on DB
If you check this checkbox, it means one of the items in your DB entry items
is a hit counting item. Any time any entry of your DB is viewed by a user,
the hit counting item of that entry will be incremented by 1. This provides
a mechanism that you can use to track interest in the entry (product) in your
DB.
The name of the item used for hit counting is
Enter the name of the item that is the hit counting item here.
Every how many days should POD report statistics to you?
If you enter 7 here, POD will send you hit counting report approximately every
7 days (please note that if on the 7th day, nobody visited your DB and POD
is never launched, you will not get a report. POD needs to be launched by
visitors of your DB before it can report anything to you). In addition, if
POD fails to send email to you on time due to SMTP server failure etc., POD
will try again approximately half a day later (again, the time line here is
dependent whether there is user viewing your DB at the time or not).
Entries with top
hit counts should be reported
If you enter 5 here, it means POD will send you a report that contains the
5 entries in your DB with the highest hit counts. The value of the first item
of each entry will be displayed in the report and be linked to the actual
entry in case you want to review that entry.
Use e-mail to report serious DB errors
Check this checkbox if you want POD to send email to you to report serious
DB errors that need your attention.
Use e-mail to report entries with top hit counts
Check this checkbox if you want POD to send email to you to report the statistics
and info using the settings you specified above from 1 to 4.
Error time, type (program generated, do not edit!)
This is used by POD. Never ever edit it by yourself! When you're using remote
administration through DBAdmin.html, you should not be able to configure this
option. I include documentation here in case you want to edit the .ini configuration
file manually.
Last stat report time (program generated, do not edit!) is
This is used by POD. Never edit it by yourself! When you're using remote administration
through DBAdmin.html, you should not be able to configure this option. I include
documentation here in case you want to edit the .ini configuration file manually.
The SMTP server for sending the mail is
Enter the domain name or IP address of your SMTP server here. SMTP server
is needed for POD to send email to you. Please note that it is your responsibility
to make sure this SMTP server will allow you send email through it. Some or
all of the following conditions must be true for that to happen: a. Your SMTP
server does not authentication. This is very rare. b. Your SMTP server uses
domain name to authenticate. If this is the case, make sure the domain name
of the computer POD resides on is authorized to send mail on that SMTP server.
c. Your SMTP server uses sender and/or receiver's email address to authenticate.
In that case, make sure your email addresses are authorized. There could be
other situations, contact the web master for your SMTP server for more info.
The e-mail address for sending the mail is
Enter any email address you want here. Your own email address is a good choice.
The e-mail address to receive the report is
You probably want to enter your own email address here to receive the report.
The e-mail subject for the statistics report is
This subject will be on the subject line on the mail sent to you when stats
are reported.
The e-mail subject for the error report is
This subject will be on the subject line on the mail sent to you when errors
are reported.
Registration Options Configuration
Reg
Do not modify this option unless you registered and received instructions
on how to set this value.
Most important!
"Convert to new items now?" under "Database Entry Info Configuration"
is a dangerous choice---If you do it right, the program will function just as
you wished. If you make an error, say, you mixed up the old item (exists in
the database already) and new item (the one that you wished for), you could
lose all the data for that item! The safe way to do it is: BACKUP
your old database first!!! Then you can choose this choice and let
the program convert the database. However, be aware that the program will produce
a temporary file that is about the same size as your old database, which means
your computer (server)'s hard disk should have enough free space to accomodate
3-4 copies of your old database to proceed!
Another (not as serious as above) thing is that you MUST include "Password"
as the last item even if you choose not to protect your database with password
authentication.
ALSO NOTE: If you do not have a POD-format database file yet, do not try create
an empty one yourself. Just access the POD program through your web server after
you finished configuration and POD will create an empty file for you (the first
line of the newly made DB file contains a few numbers and a whole line with
the same length as other entries. These numbers denote important parameters
in your database. Do not modify them!).
Please note that you should always put a name for each item
in your DB entry, and you should always assign a size for each item. You should
NEVER leave any item name or size empty like this:"entry item name=name,,telephone,web
site,image,status" (in your .ini file). This will cause the "telephone,web
site,image,status" items not read in by POD. In fact, make it a habbit
not to write anything like "...,,..." in any DB configurations because
that will cause anything behind ",," be discarded by POD. You should
at least write something like "...,a,..." to avoid losing data behind
the second comma.
conversion.exe
usage instruction
This feature is only supported in registered version of
POD! conversion.exe is a standalone application that can be run independently
under Win32 OS, unlike POD (fldb.exe and fldbconf.exe) which must be accessed
thru web server. Therefore you can use it on your local computer to convert
your old DB file first, then upload those files to your web server. First you
need to configure your DB as you would normally do following instructions above,
after which you make a copy of your ini file and rename it as oldb.ini and put
it under c:\temp. Then put the path of your old database into that oldb.ini
file [conversion] section as described above. Double click conversion.exe file
to execute it. conversion.exe will take the path you specified and covert it
to the format recogized by POD and output to the destination file (at c:\temp\FLDB.txt
on Win32 OS). No sorting of the entries in the source file will be performed
& time stamp is not supported as POD does not try to guess which stamp format
your old database was using. Note that time stamps in your old DB file will
not be recognized as conversion.exe makes no effort to guess what format your
old time stamp was using. Different data types are not supported during conversion,
which is usually not a problem. conversion.exe simply copies the content of
each item in your old DB into the items of your new POD-format DB.
The "source.txt" in the package is used to demonstrate what csv file
looks like and you may practice importing with the file as described follows.
First you have to assign your DB item names and storage sizes in DB entry info
configuration. Then assign the item names to each of the 5 data items in source.txt
that is separated by "," in output format in Output File Options Configuration
section. These item names can be any item names you assigned in DB entry info
configuration. Also remember to set path of source.txt in the path in Output
File Options Configuration section. After that you can follow the instructions
described above to launch converions.exe to convert the file.