Alchemy Help:
Project Preferences

Configuring a project

• To change the settings of an existing project, press the Change project preferences button on the toolbar or select the Options/Project preferences... menu item.
• To create a new project from scratch press the Create a new project file button on the toolbar or select the File/New project... menu item.
• To import the contents of a directory as a new project, select the File/Import directory as new project file... menu item.

• When editing an existing project:
  
  • Project name: This is the name that is associated with the project folder (the first folder in the Project window). You can call the project anything you want, like "My web site". This is a required field.

• When creating a new project from scratch:
  
  • Project name: This is the name that is associated with the project folder (the first folder in the Project window). You can call the project anything you want, like "My web site". This is a required field.
  • File name: This is the full path name of the new project file, as in "c:\mydir\mysite.prj". Alchemy project files should end with a .prj extension so that Alchemy can find them. This is a required field.

• When importing a directory as a new project:
  
  • Project name: This is the name that is associated with the project folder (the first folder in the Project window). You can call the project anything you want, like "My web site". This is a required field.
  • File name: This is the full path name of the new project file, as in "c:\mydir\mysite.prj". Alchemy project files should end with a .prj extension so that Alchemy can find them. This is a required field.
  • Directory: This is the full path to the directory which contains the HTML files you want to import, as it "c:\mydir". This is a required field.

This section lets you specify the name of the HTML file which contains your home page and it's location on the server.

• URL: Your home page's URL, as in "http://www.mysite.com". This is a required field.
• Server home directory: The host directory in which your home page is stored, as in "/pub/myco". This is a required field.
• File name on server: As in "index.html". This is a required field.
• Local file name: As in "index.htm". This is a required field.

  Note: Since Unix file naming conventions differ from those of DOS, Alchemy allows you to specify host and local versions of the home page name. When Alchemy uploads the file to the host, it will automatically copy it to a file with the host name.

This section lets you configure the internet File Transfer Protocol settings which Alchemy will use to upload your projects to your web server (a.k.a. your host). When you start a new project, these settings are copied into the new project file from the default settings. When you select the Project/Upload project to server... menu item or press the Upload toolbar button in the Project window, Alchemy uses these settings to connect to the host's FTP server and send your HTML, graphics, etc. files to it. If you have a shell/SLIP/PPP account, the values that you provide here are the same ones that you use to connect to your service provider. Note that not all FTP servers require a password or account, so check with your service provider if you have questions.

• Host name: The host name, as in "server1.netcom.com".
• User ID: Your name, as in "jjones".
• Password: Your password (if any), as in "secret".
• Account: Your account (if any), as in "group32".
• Wait timeout: The maximum number of seconds to wait for a reply after sending a command to the host, as in "30". If you use a low value here, you may find that you need to adjust it periodically depending on server traffic, etc., so we recommend a minimum value of 30 seconds. The intent of this field is to allow you to determine your patience level rather than having us do it for you, since servers sometimes don't respond for 5 minutes or more if they're having a bad day.

This section lets you configure the internet Telnet settings which Alchemy will use to upload your projects to your web server (a.k.a. your host) and to automatically connect to a host for a terminal emulator session. When you start a new project, these settings are copied into the new project file from the default settings. When you select the Project/Upload project to server... menu item or press the Upload toolbar button in the Project window, Alchemy uses the project-specific settings to connect to the host's Telnet port and change the access permissions on your directories and HTML, graphics, (etc.) files if you have specified that Telnet be used to set the access permissions. When you select the Host/Connect menu item or press the Connect toolbar button in the Telnet Session window, Alchemy uses the project-specific settings to automatically connect to the host's Telnet port. What you are essentially doing here is creating a log-in script. If you have a shell/SLIP/PPP account, the values that you provide here are exactly the same as those that you use to connect to your service provider. If you are using Trumpet Winsock (or something similar) you should pull these values out of your current log-in script.

• Host: The host name, as in "server1.netcom.com".
• Wait for: Wait for the host to send us this text before continuing.
• Send: Send this text to the host.
• CR: Append a carriage return to the text when sending it to the host.
• Prompt character: This is the last character of the command prompt which is used by your host. Alchemy uses this while setting file access permissions to determine that the host is ready to accept a command. To find out what this character is, start a Telnet session with your host and look at the last character of the command prompt. Note: If you use Telnet to set file permissions when uploading your project to the host and do not specify the correct value for this field, your upload will fail with a timeout error.
• Wait timeout: The maximum number of seconds to wait for a reply after sending a command to the host, as in "30". If you use a low value here, you may find that you need to adjust it periodically depending on server traffic, etc., so we recommend a minimum value of 30 seconds. The intent of this field is to allow you to determine your patience level rather than having us do it for you, since servers sometimes don't respond for 5 minutes or more if they're having a bad day.

This section lets you specify the location of your web server's CGI-BIN directory (if any) and the type of web server you are using.

• Web server CGI-BIN directory: The host directory in which your CGI-BIN files are stored, as in "/pub/cgi-bin/myco".
• Image maps: The type of image maps you'll be using in this project. The Alchemy Image Map Editor can create server-side image map files for NCSA- and CERN-style servers as well as client-side image maps. The image map type that you specify here is used by the Alchemy Image Map Editor as the default when creating new image maps, but you can still create image maps in any of the formats that are supported by the editor.

This section lets you specify the way in which Alchemy will handle your project files when uploading them to the web server. When you start a new project, these settings will be copied into the new project from the default settings.

Traditionally, there are three steps involved in storing documents on a web server so that they can be accessed by a web browser. First, you must create the directories in which the files will be stored. Second, you must copy the files to the server. Third, you must set the Unix access permissions for each of the directories and files so that they can be accessed by the web server and sent to a web browser. Alchemy will take care of all of these items for you automatically, but you need to tell it how you want your files to be processed.

Set access permissions using:

• FTP: - Set permissions using the FTP SITE command, as in "SITE chmod 644 index.htm". This is the preferred method, as it is faster and more reliable than Telnet. If your FTP server supports the SITE command, you should use this method.
  
• Telnet: - Set permissions using Telnet. After all files have been uploading using FTP, Alchemy will establish a Telnet session with the host and set access permissions from the command prompt. This method is slower and not as reliable as FTP, but you will have to use it if your FTP server does not support the SITE command.
  
• Don't set permissions: - Alchemy will not attempt to set access permissions if this option is selected.
  

Access permissions:

These items are used to set the default access permissions for directories, HTTP and CGI-BIN files. Note that you can also set the access permission for individual directories and files by right-clicking the mouse in the Project Window and selecting Properties... from the speed menu.

• Directories: - This value will be used as the access permission for any directories which are created by Alchemy (i.e., the home directory or CGI-BIN directory).
  
• HTTP files: - This value will be used as the access permission for all files which are uploaded to the home directory.
  
• CGI-BIN files: - This value will be used as the default access permission for all files which are uploaded to the CGI-BIN directory.
  

Stop upload if:

• File transfer fails: - Check this box if you want the project upload halted when an FTP STOR command fails; this will allow you to fix the error and try again. If this box is not checked and Alchemy is unable to transfer a file to your web server, it will log the error and continue with the next file in the project.

• Set access permissions fails: - Check this box if you want the project upload halted when a chmod command fails; this will allow you to fix the error and try again. If this box is not checked and Alchemy is unable to set access permissions for a file or directory, it will log the error and continue with the next file in the project.

Append this to all file names:

• Some service providers require that you append a special identifier to the name of each file that you upload to their server (your user ID and password, for example). Alchemy uses the information in this field to append the identifier automatically during project uploads. For example, if you enter ".jjones.secret" in this field and upload the file "myfile.gif", Alchemy will create the file "myfile.gif.jjones.secret" on the server.

*Note: how to tell if your FTP server supports the SITE command
There are several ways to determine whether or not you can set access permissions using FTP.

1. Ask your service provider
   
2. Try it - Establish a command-line FTP session with your server and issue the SITE command. If you get the message "Command not implemented." or something similar, then your FTP server does not support the SITE command.
   
3. Check the Messages Window - The first time you upload your project using Alchemy, set the Set access permissions using: value to FTP. If the upload fails with the message "Command not implemented." or something similar, then your FTP server does not support the SITE command.