Corporate Windows: WebPublisher

WebPublisher - What it does
WebPublisher is both an end-user and a developer tool. You can use WebPublisher to set up services for clients on your local server or manage database content from other streams or hosts.

WebPublisher can acquire data such as personal information, appointments, questionnaire data, purchase orders, reservations etc. and make this available within the enterprise using the Internet or as a part of a wider enterprise system. There is virtually no restriction on the type of database content that can be handled using WebPublisher.

WebPublisher provides a complete suite of HTML tools that can be used to publish or acquire data across the Internet or on a local intranet. WebPublisher allows you to publish data from your computer, Macintosh or Windows, without having to set up a web server. WebPublisher can operate as a stand-alone web server, but benefits significantly by working cooperatively with other servers to deliver a wealth of content. WebPublisher performs best by concentrating on database functions - handling queries, submitting data, running reports - leaving other servers to deliver static content such as corporate identity and graphics.

WebPublisher performs these tasks using an in built Macro generator which builds web pages from small snippets of HTML text. Since an HTML document is little more than a continuous stream of text bound between the "<HTML>" and "</HTML>" markup tags, the mechanics for assembling the final page can be broken into a series of steps.

WebPublisher lets you to generate HTML content using your favourite tools prior to assembling into Macros. Alternatively you can use the text editing facilities within WebPublisher to write HTML or to fine tune imported pages.

WebPublisher's macro facilities enable web pages to be assembled using the equivalent of HTML styles but without the extra hassle of managing HTML style sheets.

Macros are assembled using snippets of HTML and hard-wired executable code to produce complete HTML web pages. Macros can also be used to build pages without writing any code. This allows common page content to be reused in many documents without the usual maintenance headache. Changing layout for a banner or corporate header is as simple as substituting another snippet in the macro. Changes made to the content of any snippet are automatically reflected in any macros that use these snippets.

The real power of WebPublisher is achieved by using Omnis's rich and powerful programming environment to write code resources for execution within macros. By using the programming language it is possible to create forms based upon the contents of internal databases. Now there is no need to update all of those web pages if you change product names or prices or change the ordering of a parts-catalogue. Any restructuring of enterprise data is automatically available to Web users without writing any further HTML or reprogramming.