If you want to deploy your applications on the Web without making any special demands of the user machine, you can redesign them to use a HyperText Markup Language (HTML) front end and the Common Gateway Interface (CGI) Internet communication standard. This option gives the most flexibility and platform independence, but it also requires the most work.
To deploy your applications on the Internet using HTML and CGI, your steps are:
1. Create an HTML interface to your application. (This way your application can be read directly by your users' browsers.)
2. Write a CGI program that will read CGI variables, perform the processing task or launch a separate program to do so, and generate HTML output from the results. This program, also known as a script, will be executed by your Web server.
3. Compile the program using the "-Ca" option. This ensures appropriate treatment of ACCEPT and DISPLAY statements. Run the program with the "-f"runtime option or with the A_CGI environment variable set to "1". See sections 8.6.1 and 8.6.2 for information on the runtime option and environment variable.
Follow normal procedures for creating the license files for Windows and UNIX environments. If you ordered a CGI license file, see section 2.4 in the Getting Started guide.
5. Create a link to your CGI program.
6. Configure your Web server software.
Note: If desired, you can display an HTML interface using the WEB-BROWSER control
described in Appendix B. Then the HTML interface can interact with CGI programs on the Web server.