Help Page for POD Configuration

Important info that you must read!!!
Database Entry Info Configuration
File Options Configuration
Output File Options Configuration
Password Options Configuration
Search & Time Options Configuration
Remote Administration Configuration
EMail Report Options Configuration
Registration Options Configuration


Database Entry Info Configuration

  1. 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!
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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:

  1. 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

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. Password is case sensitive?
    Check this box if all the passwords used are case-sensitive. Uncheck it otherwise.
  6. 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.
  7. 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:

  1. 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!
  2. 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.
  3. 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:

  1. Use time stamp in database
    If any item in your DB is a time stamp item, check this box.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  1. 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".
  2. Administration password
    The password for administer DB options remotely through DBAdmin.html.
  3. 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.
  1. 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.
  2. The name of the item used for hit counting is
    Enter the name of the item that is the hit counting item here.
  3. 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).
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  9. 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.
  10. The e-mail address for sending the mail is
    Enter any email address you want here. Your own email address is a good choice.
  11. The e-mail address to receive the report is
    You probably want to enter your own email address here to receive the report.
  12. 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.
  13. 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

  1. Reg
    Do not modify this option unless you registered and received instructions on how to set this value.

Important things that you must read before you run POD!

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.