Alias: An exact copy of an Activator. Once an Alias is created, it can never do anything other than what its Activator does. Additional bindings cannot be added to an Alias, and an Alias cannot be made an Alias for more than one Activator. Aliases must alias Activators of like kind. Form Activators have Forms as Aliases and Anchor Activators have Anchors as Aliases. Aliases cannot become independent Activators unless they are first removed from the Alias list. If functionality from one Activator is to be used as part of another Activator, the Activator should be duplicated, not Aliased, so that the new Activator can be edited as needed.
Arguments: The data passed into the Data Object. The argument data is provided as any valid C/C++ expression that returns a char *. This data can come from HTML Form Input Elements, Hotlists, Program Variables, Defined Constants or Hard-coded Values.
Bind Name: Uniquely identifies an Object Binding. This name is generated automatically when a new data object is loaded into the Object Bind Editor. It can be changed, but you will be warned if it is not unique. It is a good practice to change the bind name to something informative or descriptive instead of using the automatically generated bind name; this makes the Object Bindings easier to identify for modification.
Data Object: An interface to data that can manipulate data and/or return results. There are six types of data objects: DSQL, PROC, FILE, EXEC, FUNC, and NULL. A "null" data object is a special type of data object that does not manipulate data or return results but provides navigation from one HTML document to another.
Data Site: A marker embedded in your HTML document that indicates where a Data Object will be placing output data. If the same Data Site appears multiple times in an HTML document, the data bound to that site will be displayed in each occurrence of the Data Site. Data Sites are expressed in this simple format:
##Sa_xxxx##
xxxx is a variable name by which you wish to refer to that site.
Database DSQL Objects: These objects are specific to Sapphire/Web. They provide a powerful mechanism for creating Stored Procedure-like database objects that reside in the generated client application instead of the server.
Developer: One who uses Sapphire/Web to develop World Wide Web applications for others to use.
Distribution: The root of where the Sapphire/Web software was installed.
GIF: Graphic Interface Format.The most widely used cross-platform graphics format.
GUI Object: The Graphical User Interface is commonly referred to as a GUI. A GUI object is an object that displays information or prompts the user for information.
Hotlist: A Hotlist is a dynamically created list of Anchors that, when selected, provide detailed information about what they represent. For example, you could have a Hotlist of authors' names. Upon selecting an author from the Hotlist, their full name, address and phone number would appear.
Object Binding: An Object Binding is the connection of a data object to a GUI Object(s). It is identified by a name unique to the project called the Bind Name. An Object Binding is made up of three parts:
Project: The final result of your work with Sapphire/Web.
Project CGI: The result of compiling and linking the generated code for the project. A single CGI is created to handle all of the Activators, Templates, and Data Objects.
Results: The data returned by a Data Object.
Template: An HTML page which acts as the target page in an Object Binding. Object Bindings bind their results to Templates at run-time. Templates may contain data sites which are populated by the Result Data from a Data Object.
Tool: The Tool is Sapphire/Web.
URL: Uniform Resource Locator. URLs are used to specify the location of HTML files and CGIs to be loaded into the Web Browser. For example, http://www.bluestone.com is a URL.
User: The person who will eventually use the application generated by Sapphire/Web.