Drumbeat was awarded the c|net "Best Web Database Product" for 1998. And, has achieved outstanding product reviews from all key Web developer publications. Check out the latest Drumbeat reviews.

Installation Procedures

Getting Started

Features

Bug Fixes

Usage Notes

DrumNotes

Drumbeat Element Exchange

Technical Support

A web server which supports Active Server Pages (ASP), such as Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) or Personal Web Server (PWS) or Chili!Soft Chili!ASP, is required to build dynamic database-driven pages with Drumbeat. Note that Drumbeat DataForm Wizard works only with web servers that support Active Server Pages. Chili!ASP enables ASP application support for Netscape Enterprise, Lotus Domino and other servers.

If you are new to Drumbeat, or an experienced user and want to get an overview of some of the new features, go through the Quick Start Guide to develop a site step-by-step, or using the provided Starting Points, to see the powerful capabilities and features of Drumbeat.

You can launch (print or view on-line) a copy of the Drumbeat Quick Start Guide or the Drumbeat User’s Guide from the Start Menu in the Drumbeat Program Group using Acrobat Exchange, Acrobat Reader or any other application that supports PDF files.

Drumbeat Starting Points are designed to accelerate your web site building. Each Drumbeat Starting Point site offers a complete example of a web solution for a general business need. You can use Drumbeat to evolve these Starting Points to meet the particular requirements of your organization. Another good use of these Starting Points is as a set of working examples that illustrate common techniques for building interactive, database-driven web business solutions with Drumbeat. Before using Drumbeat Starting Points, we recommend that you work through the Drumbeat Quick Start Guide. Consult the overview information and usage notes for each Starting Point to learn the browser target and database and server environment for which it was designed, and, for database-driven sites, the data sources that must be set up.

For the most current information on Drumbeat, please visit the Drumbeat web site. Our web site has the latest product and support information, and frequently asked questions (FAQs), for Drumbeat. You can send us feedback about the product or ask us questions about how to get the most out of Drumbeat via our web site. You can also email us with any support issues you may have.

• Import/Export Styles: You can now import and export styles from the Drumbeat style builder. You can select as many styles as you want to export, as well as import any Drumbeat or Dreamweaver CSS file into the style builder.
• Apply Same Interaction Multiple Times: You can now apply certain interactions multiple times, and edit individual instances of the interaction by selecting one of the participants and right clicking select "Assigned Interactions (ordered)". You can edit the parameters or drag and drop to change the interaction order.
• Page Title Improvements: When you insert a new page in Drumbeat and rename the page, the page title will match the page name until you specify a different page title. Once a specific page title is specified, the title will remain even if the page is renamed.
• Automatically Create Destination Directory: Drumbeat will offer to create a directory when you set the publishing destination to a folder that doesn’t exist.
• Easily View Interaction Descriptions: When applying an interaction, you can now right click on the interaction and see a description of it.
• See Dynamic Content in Edit Boxes: Edit Box SmartElements will display their assigned content at design time unless they are set to None, Empty Text, or a Recordset with the Submit Only option selected.
• Yes-to-All when importing contracts: You can now select "Yes to All" or "No to All" to overwrite all matching contracts when you import contracts into Drumbeat.
• Preview Tab Showing Current Page for ASP sites: You can now click on the Preview tab, and have the currently selected page published and loaded in the preview window.
• New Interaction ordering model: The Order Interactions option for objects will now only list the interactions that contribute script to the selected object's event handlers. You can no longer order interactions when displaying Assigned Interactions (ordered) option, but must use the new Order Interactions option.
• Drag and scroll interactions: When you are ordering interactions, you can now drag and scroll the list. Simply select the interaction and drag it down - the list will automatically scroll down as you drag.

• Foreign language font support
• HTMLPassthrough Area outlined
• SmartPage redirection including port only when not set to 80
• Default publishing location C:\inetpub\wwwroot\ for ASP/JSP sites
• Eliminate "Page Moved" response given for some browsers

• ImageButton, DynaImage, ImageCheckBox and ImageRadioButton SmartElements allow multiple content to be assigned from a Recordset.
• File paths in Content Tables use forward slashes to be compatible with Netscape browsers.
• Database user name and password are not published to the client side Recordset constructor.
• Multi-line Edit Box has been added to the list of SmartElement choices for Dataform Wizard pages.
• Updated Framesets to match target names and documentation references.
• Custom spelling dictionary selection is preserved between sessions.
• Custom components can now be identified as form elements (published between FORM tags).

• Drumbeat Site Import has been designed to accelerate the development of interactive database-driven sites using the layout, navigation and content of static pages you already have. While in many cases sites can be successfully imported and published without any modification to recreate the behavior and layout of the source site, often it is necessary to tune positioning on imported pages in the Drumbeat Layout to prevent overlaps or to reassign font styles. Due to the tremendous variation in how HTML is used in practice, users may encounter pages with tags that do not import properly. To help us to correct these situations in future, please send us the URLs of files that you encounter which do not import properly with a description of the problem to Drumbeat technical support.

• AutoTables: If you have an AutoTable on your page that has a large display region, 10 columns and 50 rows, it may impact the performance of Drumbeat when working on this page.
• PageSets: Existing PageSets in Nav3 or higher sites do not get their JavaScript based navigation buttons replaced with generic link buttons when the Site Preference in downgraded to Generic. Likewise, PageSet buttons in Generic Sites are not replaced with JavaScript when upgrading the site preference.
• Point-and-Click Interactions: Element movement interactions do not work properly on pages using SmartSpacers, or, targeted to "All 4.0 browsers" with form elements.
• Duplicate Media File Names: If two media files have the same name but are from different directories, the last one published will overwrite the first one published. This occurs because the Publish function outputs all media to a common directory by default (C:\Drumbeat\Publish) unless you select an alternate path for content. To reduce risks, avoid generic or duplicate media file names.
• Hidden Applets: Browsers do not support the concept of ‘hidden applets.’ Drumbeat 'hides' an applet by making it into a very small (2x2 pixels) square and placing it at the bottom of the page. Its background color is the same as the layout’s background color. If your layout has a background image, set the "hidden" applets' layout background color to something close to your background image for the best camouflage effect.

To download DrumNotes, go to the DrumNote section of our web site. If you have suggestions for additional DrumNotes, please let us know at drumnotes@drumbeat.com.

The Drumbeat Element Exchange is a web site where Drumbeat users can go to extend Drumbeat capabilities. At the Drumbeat Element Exchange, you will be able to download these Drumbeat components:

There are a variety of free and fee-based support programs for customers. For a detailed description of these programs, please see our web site at support.drumbeat.com.

To discuss Drumbeat with other users or ask questions check out the Drumbeat Community Newsgroups.

And send feature requests to the Drumbeat team: Our goal is to provide the products and support that enable you to Build Powerful Web Applications. Fast!