MWeb™ Universal Administrator's Guide

Reference and Technical Details

Interface Options

This table shows how to change each element of the MWeb user interface. For more information about each element, click the link in the Information about column.

ACC is the Administrator Control Center which appears when you logon as an Administrative User. The Admin button in the MWeb Main Menu (visible after you logon as an Administrative User) takes you to this display.

The ACC calls MWeb's Interface Management System™ to help you with changing some settings.

Setting	How to see setting	More information	How to change setting
Whether the Main Menu is at the top or at the left Color scheme	ACC, then Project First letter of Layout parameter is layout: h -- horizontal menu v -- vertical menu c -- vertical menu with vertical separator to its right Second letter of Layout parameter is color scheme: m -- monochrome t -- tan b -- blue g -- green	Changing Layouts	ACC, then Layouts, then Layout/Colors/Fonts
Whether contents of Toppane are centered or flush-left	ACC, then Project LogoPosition parameter is "left" or "center"	Changing Layouts	ACC, then Layouts, then Layout/Colors/Fonts
Whether there is a horizontal divider under the Toppane	ACC, then Project Middlepane parameter is "yes" or "no"	Changing Layouts	ACC, then Layouts, then Layout/Colors/Fonts
Fonts	ACC, then Project Fonts parameter is "modern", "retro", or "classic"	Changing Layouts	ACC, then Layouts, then Layout/Colors/Fonts
Display width for narrow displays (all displays except Search Results and Full Records)	ACC, then Project NarrowWidth parameter shows width in pixels	Changing Layouts	ACC, then Project, then the Edit button for NarrowWidth The "px" on the end is essential -- no space please!
Messages you can alter: Text that displays in the browser's title bar Text and graphics that display at the top of every display Text and graphics that display at the bottom of every display	ACC, then Messages	Changing Messages	ACC, then Messages
Splash screen	N/A	Customizing the Splash Screen	Unsupported
Currently selected XSLT stylesheets (used to control Search Results and Full Record displays)	ACC, then Project	Using XML and XSLT	ACC, then Layouts, then XSLT Stylesheets
Configure what Database tables and fields display, and their display-names	ACC, then Databases, select Database, then Configure Tables or Configure Fields	Configuring Tables and Configuring Fields	ACC, then Databases, select Database, then Configure Tables or Configure Fields
CSS styles	MWeb.css and MWebprint.css in the /uni/ directory	Changing CSS Stylesheets	Unsupported
XSLT styles	".xsl" files in the /uni/ directory	Using XML and XSLT	Unsupported
Thumbnail display size Release 2.0 and later. Applies only when you do not have thumbnail images and the full-size image is resized.	ACC, then Project		ACC, then Project, then the Edit button for Thumbsize
Image Window size Release 2.0 and later. Size of the windows in which full images are displayed.	ACC, then Project		ACC, then Project, then the Edit buttons for ImageWinHeight and ImageWinWidth

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Data Security (future)

If you choose to require logons for some or all users, data security is achieved by the usual user ID and encrypted password. It is transmitted using the HTTP protocol, not the more secure HTTPS. This only an average level of security, so we recommend you do not put highly sensitive data on MWeb, such as personal information, financial data, medical records, or data that might be of benefit to criminals.

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Browsers & Standards

MWeb Universal emits HTML code with a Strict Doctype; the code is in almost full compliance with the specifications of the W3C (which is our goal).This means there should be no problems for users of recent versions of the popular browsers (within the last 4-5 years), but the layout may vary slightly.

The adherance to standards means that MWeb has high "Accessibility" (a term referring to accessibility to the handicapped). This is addressed in our Accessibility page.

Users must have JavaScript and cookies turned on in order to use MWeb. These are essential features of any web application that delivers sophisticated navigation and functionality. Cookies are temporary and expire when the browser is closed. Neither the JavaScript nor the cookies contain any personally identifiable information; they are used only for navigation. They do not write anything to the user's computer and are not stored after the browser is closed.

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Error Messages

Error messages are described in a separate document. You will rarely see any of these messages. If you do, please check the Discussion column to see if the error is caused by a data problem that you can fix. There appear to be many duplicates, but their numbers tell us exactly where a problem occurred; please include the number and the full message when reporting an error to us.

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Character Encodings

Encodings supported

MWeb can work with Databases encoded in UTF-8, Latin-1, MARC-8, or decimal Numeric Character References such as "™". (These are various ways of storing "non-ASCII characters" -- that is, accented characters or characters outside the range of normal English letters, digits, and punctuation.)

Searching for accented characters

Accented characters can make searching difficult, since most people do not know how to enter them into search terms. Therefore MWeb searching disregards all accent marks. For example, to search for "résumé", searchers should enter "resume".

MWeb also ignores punctuation and capitalization in search terms except for embedded periods as in "14.95" or "systemsplanning.com". Thus "Renée-Claire" may be searched as "reneeclaire", "renee-claire" or "renee claire".

Searching for other non-ASCII characters

Some characters cannot be dropped the way the diacritics are, but are searched using their closest ASCII equivalent. For example, the word "Ægir" is searched as "aegir". Here is a table of such characters. If the character is not shown in this table, such as ©, ™, the "kra" character, etc., then simply leave it out of the search term.

We regret that some of the characters in the table below display as "?". The table is shown in Arial Unicode MS, currently the most complete font for displaying Unicodes. However, at present no font commonly available is able to show all Unicodes; the characters not in the Arial Unicode MS font appear as "?".

Name	Character	Enter as
LATIN LETTER AE	Æ, æ	ae
LATIN LIGATURE OE	Œ, œ	oe
LATIN LETTER ALPHA	ɑ	a
LATIN LETTER CLOSED OPEN E	ʚ	e
LATIN LETTER DB DIGRAPH	ȸ	db
LATIN LETTER DOTLESS I	ı	i
LATIN LETTER DOTLESS J	ȷ	j
LATIN LETTER DZ	Ǳ, ǳ	dz
LATIN LETTER DZ DIGRAPH	ʣ	dz
LATIN LETTER ETH	Ð, ð	d
LATIN LETTER GAMMA	ɣ	g
LATIN LETTER INSULAR G	ᵹ	g
LATIN LETTER INVERTED R	ʁ	r
LATIN LETTER LJ	Ǉ, ǉ	lj
LATIN LETTER LONG S	ſ	s
LATIN LETTER LS DIGRAPH	ʪ	ls
LATIN LETTER LZ DIGRAPH	ʫ	lz
LATIN LETTER NJ	Ǌ, ǌ	nj
LATIN LETTER OPEN O	ᴐ	o
LATIN LETTER QP DIGRAPH	ȹ	qp
LATIN LETTER REVERSED E	Ǝ, ɘ	e
LATIN LETTER REVERSED N	ᴎ	n
LATIN LETTER REVERSED R	ᴙ	r
LATIN LETTER SCHWA	ə	e
LATIN LETTER SCRIPT G	ɡ	g
LATIN LETTER SHARP S	ß	ss
LATIN LETTER SIDEWAYS O	ᴑ	o
LATIN LETTER SIDEWAYS OPEN O	ᴒ	o
LATIN LETTER SIDEWAYS U	ᴝ	u
LATIN LETTER STRETCHED C	ʗ	c
LATIN LETTER THORN	Þ, þ	th
LATIN LETTER TS DIGRAPH	ʦ	ts
LATIN LETTER TURNED A	ɐ	a
LATIN LETTER TURNED AE	ᴂ	ae
LATIN LETTER TURNED ALPHA	ɒ	a
LATIN LETTER TURNED E	ǝ	e
LATIN LETTER TURNED G	ᵷ	g
LATIN LETTER TURNED H	ɥ	h
LATIN LETTER TURNED I	ᴉ	i
LATIN LETTER TURNED K	ʞ	k
LATIN LETTER TURNED M	Ɯ, ɯ	m
LATIN LETTER TURNED OE	ᴔ	oe
LATIN LETTER TURNED OPEN E	ᴈ	e
LATIN LETTER TURNED R	ᴚ, ɹ	r
LATIN LETTER TURNED T	ʇ	t
LATIN LETTER TURNED V	ʌ	v
LATIN LETTER TURNED W	ʍ	w
LATIN LETTER TURNED Y	ʎ	y
LATIN LETTER U BAR	ʉ	u
LATIN LETTER UE	ᵫ	ue
LATIN LIGATURE FF	ﬀ	ff
LATIN LIGATURE FFI	ﬃ	ffi
LATIN LIGATURE FFL	ﬄ	ffl
LATIN LIGATURE FI	ﬁ	fi
LATIN LIGATURE FL	ﬂ	fl
LATIN LIGATURE IJ	Ĳ, ĳ	ij
LATIN LIGATURE LONG S T	ﬅ	st
LATIN LIGATURE ST	ﬆ	st
LATIN SUBSCRIPT LETTER A	ₐ	a
LATIN SUBSCRIPT LETTER E	ₑ	e
LATIN SUBSCRIPT LETTER I	ᵢ	i
LATIN SUBSCRIPT LETTER O	ₒ	o
LATIN SUBSCRIPT LETTER R	ᵣ	r
LATIN SUBSCRIPT LETTER SCHWA	ₔ	e
LATIN SUBSCRIPT LETTER U	ᵤ	u
LATIN SUBSCRIPT LETTER V	ᵥ	v
LATIN SUBSCRIPT LETTER X	ₓ	x

Indexing of non-Latin characters

MWeb Databases may contain any character that is valid in the Database's encoding (that is, any valid UTF-8, Latin-1, or MARC-8 character). This means that your Database may contain non-Latin characters such as Greek, Cyrillic, Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, etc. These will display correctly if the user's computer has the required font. However, MWeb is not yet capable of indexing and searching words using these characters. If your Database has words with these characters they are ignored during indexing and searching. If your Database consists entirely of these characters, MWeb will not work, as it will not be able to create an index. Indexing and searching on non-Latin characters will be considered for future development.

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Installation Details

Here are details of what the automated installation program does, in case you need to make manual modifications.

Directories

Here are the physical directories (folders) created if you retained the default names in the installation program:

For the Main Module:

     c:\mweb
       |
       |- uni
       |
       |- unicgi
       |
       |- unigraphics
       |
       |- unidata

For the Database Connector:

     c:\mweb
       |
       |- udccgi
       |
       |- udcdata
       |
       |- udcimages

If the Database does not have images, or if these will be stored on other servers, there is no need to create the image directory.

Directory mapping and permissions

MWeb relies on IIS (or other web-server) to know where some directories are located. This is done by creating a name in IIS that points to those directories (IIS calls these "virtual directories"). The installation program creates these virtual directories as shown in the next table.

WARNING: For each virtual directory you create, you must turn off the IIS default that permits directory browsing. If you allow this, you can unknowingly allow users to copy your entire database, and to copy images without going through the logon procedure. You will also be violating the MWeb license by permitting our intellectual property to be stolen.

If your site uses a shared-hosting service, you will not have access to IIS to make these modifications. Instead, you will be required to put the physical CGI and Data Directories in certain locations for security reasons. These locations will act like virtual directories.

For example, Verio.com requires all CGI programs to be under "cgi-bin". Therefore create a new physical directory "unicgi" under "cgi-bin". Your virtual directory will be "cgi-bin/unicgi".

Likewise, Verio requires all data to be under "data". Therefore create a new physical directory "unidata" under "data". (There is no virtual directory for the data directory.)

For the Main Module:

MWeb name	Physical directory	Physical directory permissions*	Virtual directory	Virtual directory permissions	Contents
Page Directory	c:\mweb\uni	Read	uni	Read, scripts	HTML pages, CSS files, XSLT files, Javascript files, and your optional Splash Screen.
CGI Directory	c:\mweb\unicgi	Read	unicgi	Execute	The program files.
Data Directory	c:\mweb\unidata	Read, Write	no virtual directory needed	no virtual directory needed	This is NOT where your Database is stored; this is where the MWeb Main Module will store its Control Tables (MWebUni.dat).
Graphics Directory	c:\mweb\unigraphics	Read	unigraphics	Read	GIF and JPG graphics used in the user interface (buttons, logos, etc.). This directory is needed even if you do not plan to add your own graphics.

* See next section.

For the Database Connector:

MWeb name	Physical directory	Physical directory permissions*	Virtual directory	Virtual directory permissions	Contents
CGI Directory	c:\mweb\udccgi	Read	udccgi	Execute	The program files.
Data Directory	c:\mweb\udcdata	Read, Write	no virtual directory needed	no virtual directory needed	This is NOT where your Database is stored; this is where the MWeb Database Connector will store its Control Tables (MWebXML?.dat).
Image Directory**	c:\mweb\ucdimages	Read	udcimages	Read	Images in your collection. If the images are already on the server, there is no need to move or copy them.

* See next section.

** You may store your images on this server or on other servers, whichever is more convenient. See discussion in Standard Setup.

Setting permissions on physical directories

Repeat this process for each physical directory created during installation:

Using Windows Explorer, right-click on the directory name, select Sharing, and then select the Security tab.
The Internet Guest Account is named IUSR_MACHINENAME (where MACHINENAME is the name of the server). If IUSR_MACHINENAME is not listed in Group or user names, click Add, then Advanced, then Find Now.
Scroll down to IUSR_MACHINENAME, select it, and click OK. Click OK again.
Select IUSR_MACHINENAME in Group or user names and make sure Read is checked below (and also Write for Unidata and UDCdata). Then click Advanced.
Check Replace permission entries on all child objects with entries shown here that apply to child objects, then click OK. Click Yes in the confirmation window.
Click OK to close the Properties window.

If the Security tab is not available, make sure that the drive is an NTFS drive. Also, if you are using Windows XP, disable Use simple file sharing in the Windows Explorer Tools/Folder Options menu, View tab; apply this setting to all directories.

Enabling a default document

MWeb requires that IIS enable a "default document" named Index.htm. If you are not using the installation program, use the IIS Administrator to open the Properties window for the uni virtual directory and go to the Documents tab. Make sure that "Enable Default Document" is checked, and make sure that only "index.htm" shows in the list. Add it if it is not there and remove all others.

Turn off ASP?

Some experts recommend that ASP be turned off if not being used, as this will improve performance. Since ASP is not needed for MWeb, you may turn it off if you will not be using it for anything else.

If you are using ASP, you might consider turning off ASP Session States to improve performance if your other requirements permit this.

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Uninstalling & Reinstalling

Uninstalling

Because of the number of variations in the way MWeb can be installed, there is no automated un-installation process. To remove MWeb, do these two things on each server:

Using Windows Explorer, remove the physical directories that contain MWeb and/or the Database Connector.
Using the IIS Administrator, remove the virtual directories for MWeb and/or the Database Connector.

MWeb does not use the Windows Registry so no Registry entries will be left behind after uninstallation.

Reinstalling

If you wish to start over with your installation and configuration, you may reinstall MWeb. To do so, follow the steps above to uninstall, then re-run the installation program. You should do this on each server you wish to reinstall to.

When you perform the initial setup after reinstalling, be sure to enter the domain of the original installation where it is called for. This will tell our registration database that you are re-using your MWeb rather than trying to use it twice. The domain is the part of the URL that looks like "www.example.org". Enter the domain exactly as it was entered during the original setup. You may use a different domain for the reinstallation, but the original one will stop working.

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4915 Redford Road
Bethesda, MD 20816 USA
(301) 652-1231
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