delivering active content to the Web. If InterDev (formerly Internet Studio) is anything, it's at least comprehensive. Some highlights:
- Image Composer,
a set of tools for creating and manipulating sprites (images that are "smart" about their shape) that you can include on your Web pages.
- Media Manager,
a collection of services integrated with the W
indows Explorer, that helps track the media files created as you build your Web site.
- Music Producer,
which lets you pick from among several dozen music styles to create a MIDI file you can incorporate into your site.
- FrontPage 97,
Microsoft's Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) editor and Website development tool.
In the simplest sense, an Active Server page is a file (with an .ASP extension) containing HTML and either Visual Basic script or JScript. When executed by the server, the file generates -- on the fly -- a virtual HTML page to be sent to the client. An Active Server page can also include ActiveX controls that are downloaded and executed on the client side. However, this requires Internet Explorer 3.0, or a special Navigator plug-in offered by Netscape, on the client side.
ActiveX controls play more than a client-side (run-time) role in InterDev; there are also design-time ActiveX controls that work much like wizards. Call them up while you
're building your page and, through a series of guided questions, they produce the necessary script code automatically. If you embed a run-time control, InterDev's visual object editor materializes so you can modify that control's appearance and properties. The object editor then writes the appropriate HTML code to embed the control.
Another important goal of InterDev is to help designers build database activities into their Web site. (Though InterDev boasts support of any database compliant with Open Database Connectivity (ODBC), I tested it with SQL Server 6.5.) InterDev incorporates a DataView pane similar to the one in Visual C++ 4.0 Enterprise Edition -- except that the InterDev version lets you modify the contents of databases, while VC++ EE's provides read-only database access. (For details about VC++ EE, see the comparison review, "Client/Server C++: Write Fast, Run Fast".) As an accompaniment to InterDev's database support, Microsoft includes SQL Query Designer, which you can run alone or with t
hose design-time ActiveX controls that are aware of it and that need to incorporate SQL queries.
InterDev's site management features help you keep abreast of constantly changing content. For example, a "link view" provides a graphical representation of all the links among files on your site. You can track down and patch broken links without having to spelunk your Web site for busted plumbing.
Visual InterDev's drawback is its complexity -- though that's not a fault of the package as much as an indication of just how complicated a Web site can get. If you're trying to maintain a site based on Active Server pages, Visual InterDev will be your tool of choice.
Product Information
Visual InterDev 1.0............Price undetermined at press time
Microsoft
Redmond, WA
Phone: (206) 882-8080
Fax: (206) 936-7329
Internet:
http://www.microsoft.com/vinterdev/
Circle 978 on Inquiry Card.
Web Server Activator
