12/17/2004: Aegis Group is delighted to announce the release of FoxWeb 3. FoxWeb 3 adds a lot of new and exciting features, including web based administration, cookie-less sessions, an SMTP control for sending email and much, much more. You may read about FoxWeb 3 and Downoad it for evaluation purposes at www.foxweb.com.

In addition to a large number of performance and compatibility improvements, FoxWeb 3 offers the following new features:

FoxWeb Administration Script
The new FoxWeb Administration script (fwAdmin.fwx) provides a number of functions, including System Information, a link to the Error Log Viewer, channel status, the ability to compile scripts on the server even if it's running with the VFP Run-Time DLL, and the ability to run code interactively on the server.

Script Compilation Enhancements
Up until version 2, FoxWeb required scripts to be compiled by a full version of VFP. Users running their servers with the VFP Run-Time DLL were required to manually compile their scripts on a different computer using a largely manual process whenever they made changes to the source code. The new version removes this restriction for servers running VFP 6 Service Pack 3 and above. It also provides a variety of tools that aid administrators in compiling scripts both locally and remotely.

• Added ability to compile scripts while running FoxWeb with VFP Run Time DLL if using VFP 6 Service Pack 3 and above. FWX and PRG files specified in a URL, or called via Server.Execute and Server.Transfer will be compiled automatically, while scripts called with the DO command, or using a function call functions must be compiled with the new fwCompile object. When using the full VFP product all scripts will be compiled automatically, regardless of how they were called.
  
• Compile Scripts function in FoxWeb Administration script facilitates batch compilation of fwx and prg scripts on the server. This function is particularly useful for servers that are running with the VFP run-time DLL.
  
• New fwCompile object allows batch compilation of whole directory trees, using wildcard patterns. Both PRG and FWX files are supported.
  
• FWXCOMPILE.EXE was enhanced so that it can compile whole directory trees.

Send Email with the ASPSmartMail SMTP Component
FoxWeb 3 includes the ASPSmartMail is an SMTP control, which can be used to send e-mail from FoxWeb scripts and other programs that support COM controls.

Cookie-less sessions

• Added support for sessions on browsers that have cookies turned off.
  
• Added SessionNoCookies registry entry, which if set to 1 will force FoxWeb to always look for the session id token in the query string.

Authentication object enhancements

• Added ability to store passwords in encrypted format, via the Auth.EncryptPassword property. Use Server.HashMD5 to create passwords.
  
• Added ability to perform case sensitive authentication via the Auth.CaseSensitive property.
  
• Added Auth.AdminAuthenticate and Auth.AdminLogout methods, which authenticate users against the administrator User ID and Password. The administrator User ID and Password settings can be set in the FoxWeb Control Center and are used by the new FoxWeb Administration Script. Developers can create additional administration scripts and use the Auth.AdminAuthenticate and Auth.AdminLogout methods to protect them.

Improved Channel Management

• Increased maximum number of channels from 9 to 30. Please see updated notes on recommended number of channels.
  
• Improved channel management. Channels are killed by a separate thread, allowing the Channel Controller to continue with other tasks.
  
• The priority with which channels are assigned has changed. In the past, FoxWeb would assign the lowest non-busy channel. The new algorithm also takes into account whether channels are still sending data to browsers. Priority is now given to the channel with the fewest active connections. In case of ties, the lowest channel number wins. Active connections are network connections, on which the channel is still returning data. In order to improve performance, FoxWeb channels become available as soon as execution of a script is completed. It is possible for a channel to be available to execute a new request, while it is still returning data for one of more previously-executed requests. This change will prevent "FoxWeb Channel Stopped Responding" errors on busy servers serving sizable content to browsers with slow connections.
  
• Channel Status window and output of show_channels internal script display the number of active connections for each channel. This column indicates the number of requests for which the channel is still sending data back to client browsers.
  
• Output of show_channels internal script displays two additional columns: Last Script is the name of the last script that was received by the channel. Last Script Time is the time that the channel received the last request.
  
• Added setting for total Buffer Memory Size value used by FoxWeb channels.

Error Logging

• Ability to view line number and content in error log when running under run- time DLL if available.
  
• Fixed formatting of memvar dump in error log when running under run-time DLL.

FoxWeb Setup

• FoxWeb setup program was re-written from scratch, using Windows Installer (MSI) technology.
  
• More robust method of setting up .fwx script mapping for IIS.
  
• Automatic setup of application extensions, which are required for IIS 6 and above (Windows 2003).
  
• Option to switch version of VFP without having to reinstall FoxWeb.

Miscellaneous Improvements

• Added Reset After Errors configuration option. If this option is disabled, then FoxWeb does not reset the current channel after script a error. Older versions of FoxWeb always used to reset channels after an error. This will prevent "FoxWeb Channel Stopped Responding" errors for busy servers, serving large output buffers to browsers with slow connections.
  
• Added SharedTempDir registry entry, which can be used to specify a network location for the session table. Only useful for load-balanced server farms.
  
• Added Request.StartTime and Request.StartSeconds methods.
  
• Running fwserver.exe returns the version of VFP it was compiled with.
  
• Increased maximum number of memory variables (MVCOUNT) from 2,048 to 4,096.
  
• Minor user interface enhancements in FoxWeb Control Center.
  
• Non-script errors have an HTTP status code of 500 Server Error.
  
• Status window uses colors to represent the status of FoxWeb channels.
  
• Added description to the FoxWeb service entry in the Control Panel.
  
• Channel status window is now resizable.