Customize Dialog

Pressing the "Customize" button for "Thin Client" and "Internet" Smart Code styles in the Callbacks dialog displays the Customize dialog.

The dialog is slightly different according to whether it is displayed with "Thin Client" or "Internet" selected from the option menu.

This dialog allows you to specify how data is sent to and received from the server. There are two main areas in this dialog:

  1. Connections.

    The details of the network connections, such as the proxy and the URL.

  2. Custom data handlers.

    The names of routines which should be used for communicating across the network instead of those supplied by X-Designer.

  3. 1 Connections

    X-Designer uses the information in this section to generate code to establish a link across a network. The fields in this dialog are:

    1. Proxy Host.

      This is only required if you are behind a firewall. It is the name of the conduit between your computer and the internet.

    2. Proxy Port.

      This is only required if you are behind a firewall. It is the port number to use on the proxy host.

    3. URL.

      This is the only field in the dialog which must be filled in. It is a string which describes the location and means of retrieval of a document. What this "document" is depends on the style of communication you have chosen (as described above): If you have chosen send and receive, the URL probably names a CGI program which is the server side of your application. If you have chosen to send only, the URL will be the name of a completely separate remote server from which you only expect some acknowledgment of receipt. If you have chosen to receive only, the URL probably names a completely separate remote server (or file on that server) from which you are expecting data in a particular format.

      URLs are part of the established World Wide Web protocol.

    4. Query Data.

      This is a query string. When a question mark (?) appears in a URL, the remainder is assumed to be an algorithm for matching a document or its contents, such as may be expected by a search engine. It is up to the server to interpret this string. X-Designer appends the question mark character and then the query string to the URL.

    5. Server Push.

      This is a toggle which, when selected, tells X-Designer that you are prepared to accept asynchronous input from the server. This means that

    2 Custom Data Handlers

    The section of the Customize dialog labelled "Custom Data Handlers" gives you the option of overriding the following default routines:

    1. Send. This is the routine which sends data to the server
    2. Receive. This is the routine which receives data from the server.
    3. Out of Band Data. This is the routine which handles data of an unexpected type returning from the server.
    Leaving an empty text box for the Send or Receive handlers causes X-Designer to generate a default routine. For Out of Band Data, the name of the default routine appears in the text box. These defaults provide basic functionality, allowing you to create a working client-server application without immediately having to provide your own handlers.

    See also: