Appgen-0.2 ---------- Appgen is a an application generator and high level 4GL for creating WWW based applications for use on the internet or corporate intranets. It is designed to use the Postgres95 database system but could probably be modified to work with any SQL database server such as mSQL. The generated C files and executables are designed to be executed as CGI scripts by a web server such as NCSA's HTTPD. What does it do ? Appgen generates data entry forms capable of adding, amending, searching for and deleting records from an SQL server (currently Postgres95). The forms are based on HTML and so can be accessed via any Web browser. The data structures are specified in a definition file which simply describes the fields of the database. The DEFGEN utility then compiles these definition files into appgen source code which can modified before compilation by the appgen compiler. The appgen compiler outputs standard C code which forms the cgi scripts. Some code relies on Java applets, which are provided. Installation ------------ You must have Postgres95 fully installed and working and also HTTPD. This package should ideally be extracted into /usr/local/AppGEN, although you can change it to something else but you'll need to modify the generated makefiles. You'll need to copy the ag/ directory to the document root directory of your web server e.g. cp -R ag /usr/local/httpd The ag directory contains gif and java files needed at runtime. You then need to add /usr/local/AppGEN/bin to your search path. Linux a.out (i386) binaries are provided but if you need to recompile them, they should compile on most platforms, then do a make from the src/ directory. You will obviously need the java development kit to recompile the applets. Compiling and Installing the Personal Information Manager --------------------------------------------------------- The PIM is provided as one of the sample applications. It is pretty basic, consisting of a To-Do list manager and a contacts database, but illustrates quite well the appgen 4GL and the benefits gained by running this sort of application in a groupware environment. The other sample applications are probably not of general interest as they are Estates related but do serve as an example of appgen 4GL programming, demonstrating what can be achieved with the system. All the sample applications are found in the apps/ directory. To install the PIM, firstly you will need to modify the global.app file to set your site specific settings, the src directory is important as this will be the directory where the generated C files will be deposited. Type appgen pim.app, this compiles the pim file and produces the C files. Goto your src directory and type make, that compiles the C files and puts the executables into your CGI-BIN directory. You then need to create the SQL tables on postgres and setup some users, this is achieved by executed the pim.sql file e.g. psql