There are two fundamental problems with finding services on TCP/IP networks. One is a limited access, fairly static service registration in the form of TCP/IP's Domain Name System (DNS). The other is the lack of a means of browsing for services on the network. Web Engage! takes advantage of the ease of use and plug-and-play nature of AppleTalk to circumvent both these problems, and does it using the point-and-click interface of the Chooser. Web Engage! assumes that both your server and client Macintoshes are on both AppleTalk and TCP/IP networks. The basic configuration is shown below in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Basic Web Engage! Configuration
In the following example, it is assumed that Web Engage! has been configured to register a Web server but not an FTP server. When the Web server starts, it in turn starts the Web Engage! plug-in, which registers the server on AppleTalk. The AppleTalk type used is "HTTPServer" (or "FTPServer" in the case of an FTP server). When the plug-in is started by the Web server, the plug-in also asks that server for its host name, which the plug-in will return to the browser later as part of the server's URL. When the Web server stops, the plug-in deregisters the server.
When the user selects a server from the Web Engage! Chooser extension and clicks the Open button, the extension asks the Web Engage! plug-in, over AppleTalk, for the host name of the server and the configured path name. The extension then passes the server's URL (the server's host name with the configured pathname appended) to the browser. Finally, the browser uses the URL to request a page from the server. Note that AppleTalk is used to register a server, and for the Chooser extension to ask the plug-in for the URL of that server, but the browser (or FTP application) and TCP/IP are still used to actually access the server.
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