FoxWeb is an application framework that enables Web site administrators to leverage the power of the Visual FoxPro programming language and database engine to create applications that run over the internet. Its programming interface was designed to protect you from having to worry about the complexities of CGI programming, without taking away the control that is necessary in order to create powerful applications.

The FoxWeb programming interface provides functions that make it easy to read incoming data and dynamically create HTML output, which is sent back to the user's browser. In order to write FoxWeb programs it first necessary to obtain a general understanding of web programming and the differences between static and dynamic HTML content.

Static versus Dynamic Content

Static Content

The Web originated as a medium for linked static content, which are pre-authored pages that reside on a server's hard disk and are sent to users upon request. Web site administrators must explicitly modify their HTML pages in order for the content that the Web server sends to a client browser to change. In the static model, a client browser uses the Hypertext Transport Protocol (HTTP) to request an HTML page from the Web server. A server receives the request and sends the HTML page back to the client browser, which formats and displays the page. Although this model is adequate for many applications, it provides only limited interaction between the user and the Web server and is not suitable for serving data-intensive content. The information served is only as current as the last time someone manually edited the HTML pages.

Dynamic HTML

With Common Gateway Interface (CGI), Internet Server Application Programming Interface (ISAPI), and other gateway interfaces, a user can send an HTTP request to program on the server rather than requesting a static HTML file. When such a request arrives, the server runs the specified program, providing to it the information that that was passed with the request; for example, fields that a user entered by filling out an HTML form. The program then parses the values for meaningful information, and generates output in HTML to send back to the client.