CSCI-4220 Network Programming

Project 4 - CGI Based Composite Web Page Manager
Due Date: March 20th
Tape Delay Due Date: March 28th

Submission Instructions

Composite Web Pages

You job is to build a CGI system that allows users to create and use composite web pages. The user creates a composite web page by filling out a form that includes the name of the new (composite) web page and a list of the URLS that should each be placed in a frame. Later the user can ask your CGI for one of these web pages (using the name) and the result is that the browser gets the composite web page.

Project requirements

• The system must be CGI based.

• You can wite your CGI program(s) in any language, although if you are using something we might not have you need to check with us. (C, C++, perl are all OK).

• The system must have a login screen. Before a user can use they must tell the system who they are. You don't need to worry about security (no passwords are necessary), the idea is just that different users could create and use different collections of composite web pages.
• You system should use HTTP cookies so that the user does not need to login every time they request a composite web page (only the first time). I'd suggest using a cookie with no expriation date so the browser does not store it on disk.
• Each user can create multiple composite web pages, and later ask for them by name.
• A user should be able to get a list of thier composite web pages, these should be hyperlinks (the user can click on the name and get the composite web page).
• It must be possible to "bookmark" the composite web pages.
• You should include JavaScript in all you HTML forms to make sure the user enters something.

Demo system

For now (until I spiff it up), the demo system should be considered nothing more than the general idea of having a CGI system that allows you to build and request composite web pages (if you don't understand what a composite web page is - play with the system and you'll see what I mean).

The demo is at: http://cgi.cs.rpi.edu/~hollingd/netprog/priv/comp.cgi

HTML Frames

Frames allow you to divide the browser window into independent frames, each frame holds a web page. It's easy to get started using frames - you only need to learn about 2 tags: FRAMESET and FRAME.

The FRAMESET tag
The FRAMESET HTML tag is used to define how the browser window should be split up amongst multiple frames. You can control the size of frames, whether things are split in to rows or columns, etc.

Here is a couple of example FRAMESET tags:

<!-- This frameset tag splits the window in to 3 equal columns -->

<FRAMESET cols="*,*,*">
</FRAMESET>

<!-- This frameset tag splits the window in to 3 equal rows -->

<FRAMESET rows="*,*,*">
</FRAMESET>

<!-- This frameset tag splits the window so that the top frame is
1/2 the window and the lower 2 frames each get 1/4 of the window -->

<FRAMESET rows="50%,*,*">
</FRAMESET>

The FRAME tag
Between the FRAMESET and /FRAMESET tags can be a number of FRAME tags that define what should be placed inside the frames. In the simplest case you just specify the SRC attribute with the value being a URL. A complete example:

<!-- This frameset tag splits the window in to 2 equal columns -->

<FRAMESET cols="*,*">

  <FRAME SRC="http://www.yahoo.com">
  <FRAME SRC="http://www.excite.com/">

</FRAMESET>

Your CGI program needs to generate documents that include FRAMESET and FRAME tags!

Submision

IMPORTANT! You must also include the URL of your running system! We don't plan to build and install your CGI programs - we want to use your running system whenever possible!

Ideas

• Build a couple of composite web pages by hand (edit a file that is in your public.html directory and load it with a browser).

• Start with one of the demo CGI programs and modify it to do what you want.
• If you are using C - check out the sample CGI program named pizzacookie - it includes C code for getting and parsing the request, and for parsing cookie headers.
• There are lots of things you can do to make the system more useful:
  • allow the user to specify (somehow) the layout of the frames. Rows vs. columns vs. grid, etc.
  • always include a (small) frame that is a control panel
  • Allow users to edit existing composite web page definitions.

• I've tried to come up with an interesting CGI program that doesn't require lots of file/IO parsing. You do need to save the definitions of composite web pages, but that should be pretty simple. I envision something like storing each composite web page in a file named for the user and page (so keep them unique), when a request is made for a composite web page you use the username and page name that come in as part of the request to determine the filename.

• Start up a ".com" and make a billion dollars!