As you approach the end of this book, there are still a few particulars that you have been unable to examine in the preceding pages. Because of the almost frenetic pace of development of the Internet, software companies like Microsoft are taking dynamic strides in the development of technology to maximize the potential. The technology that is being developed at Microsoft and a hundred other companies are sure to deliver on some of the promises that the Internet holds for the future of computing. This chapter is devoted to the "late breaking" technology developments that either represent enabling technologies for other products, or have come too late in the publishing cycle to receive significant detailed coverage here. Just because a product or technology hasn't received full treatment in these pages doesn't minimize its importance. Instead of having to stretch little information to fill these pages, the other authors and I have had to judiciously pare the material without limiting the scope of the book. This chapter is an attempt to "tie up loose ends" where we have been forced to allude to a given development or technology earlier. I intend to show in this chapter that the technology that is driving the popularity of the Internet is a rich source of current innovation and future promise.
The technology that is driving the innovation that Microsoft is rolling into Internet Explorer can be broadly categorized into the following four areas
Much of the software described in this chapter is Beta software, or even Alpha software. As a result, some of the details might change before these products and technologies see the light of day. I indicate when I expect changes to occur or when I am dealing with material that represents a stable feature set.
Although you might be tempted to skip to the section of the chapter that really interests you, I suggest that you read through the whole chapter. You can gain a good understanding of how all this new technology is related and what to expect as Microsoft implements its vision for the Internet.
You might not be a developer, or even be interested in writing a single line of code, but nowhere is Microsoft's Internet vision shown as well as in the depth of tools that is being released for developers. Microsoft has a long history of creating great development environments, and this history isn't going to change now. To further its vision of the Internet, Microsoft makes many of the tools and information available on the Internet for easy downloading. The wealth of information that is available at http://www.microsoft.com/devonly/ helps to popularize the technology as well as educate the development community on the use of the tools, as shown in Figure 36.1. The DevOnly site changes frequently as new products are released or new technologies are featured, so you might want to bookmark the site for the future.
Figure 36.1. The Developers Only site is the doorway to developing for Windows.
The information at the DevOnly site is a constantly changing reflection of the state of software development Microsoft style. Using either the Products or Technologies drop-own list boxes to select your interest, you can find the answer to most of your development questions. One of the technology selections is the Internet Workshop, as shown in Figure 36.2. This page at
http://www.microsoft.com/workshop/
is the main entry point into the whole range of Web development offerings from Microsoft. Whether you are a programmer, webmaster, or graphic designer, you are likely to find information here to help you take full advantage of Internet Explorer. You use this page as a base for this chapter's foray into the development of Web technology Microsoft style!
Figure 36.2. The Internet Workshop site is the doorway to developing for Windows on the Internet.
In Figure 36.2, you might have noticed that the cursor is pointing to a little icon in the top portion of the Workshop page. A cool tool that Microsoft has made available is DevNav, a floating toolbar that is hardwired to help you navigate the DevOnly site. Figure 36.3 shows the DevNav tool with the DevOnly home page selected. Each of the pull-down menus in DevNav takes you directly to an area of the DevOnly site. If you plan to visit the site frequently, download DevNav from the Internet Workshop.
As you look at the technology for Web developers, you need to keep in mind that many levels of developers work on the Web. If all you want to do is create better looking Web pages, the Internet Workshop has the information you need. If you are a programmer interested in writing your own Internet applications or ActiveX component, the Internet Workshop is the place to start. Figure 36.4 shows the contents of the Programming selection of the Workshop. This page highlights the key technologies that you need to understand to implement state-of-the-art Web programming.
One of the selections from the Programming page is for the ActiveX Software Development Kit (SDK). ActiveX is the technology Microsoft is introducing to provide a consistent programming interface to all the resources of the Internet. Using ActiveX technology, you can add dynamic content to your Web pages using Java, VBScript, JavaScript, or any of hundreds of tools that are being developed for Internet Explorer by component developers. These components will eventually cover every area of computing technology from fairly simple Web image viewers to full-scale applications designed to run inside Internet Explorer. In fact, many of the features of Internet Explorer are implemented as ActiveX components such as the ActiveX Scripting engine, which provides the interface for VBScript and JavaScript. Internet Explorer's support of the Netscape plug-in architecture is implemented as ActiveX components as well. But what exactly is ActiveX? Why is it so important to Microsoft's Internet strategy? In the following section, I describe the tools and technology that Microsoft has called ActiveX.
When Microsoft announced the full range of ActiveX technologies in March 1996, many people thought that they were playing "catch up," and that it was too late. But in typical Microsoft style, Microsoft quickly followed that press release with substantial technology announcements accompanied with key strategic partners already building on the technology that Microsoft was promising. A quick look at ActiveX technology is in order to understand why it is so important.
ActiveX technology is a broad attempt to embrace and enhance all areas of the Internet. It is a set of tools and technologies designed as lightweight, robust, optimized for the Internet, and easily extensible by developers using C, C++, or Visual Basic. ActiveX technology represents an evolution of existing technology as well as new technology. The following short summary defines the key ActiveX technologies and, where appropriate, the terms used previously.
ActiveX Components were formerly called "OLE controls" and also known as "OCX" because the files have the .OCX extension. ActiveX components encapsulate discrete functionality such as image viewing or even entire applications. These components are reusable "objects" that can be embedded in Web pages or used within applications. Because a large body of OCX already exists, ActiveX components are available for just about any function that you might need. An example of an ActiveX component is the new "Pop-up menu" control that is delivered with Internet Explorer. This control enables you to embed a pop-up menu in your Web pages and interact with users based on their selections from the menu. As shown in Figure 36.5, this pop-up menu can enable you to embed client-side interaction in your Web pages to provide selections without using CGI or other processes.
ActiveX scripting is another key technology that Microsoft has introduced. When Microsoft announced Visual Basic Script or "VBScript," it was thought that this would be Microsoft's JavaScript "killer." But instead, Microsoft has developed ActiveX scripting and delivered both VBScript and JavaScript with Internet Explorer. ActiveX scripting is a "host" technology that provides an extensible architecture for other script languages to be developed and added to the capability of the browser. ActiveX scripting "engines" are reportedly being developed for Perl, Rexx, TCL, and others. And with scripting, as with all ActiveX technology, you can use the scripts within Internet Explorer or any other application. You can find a good example of the versatility of ActiveX Scripting at http://www.microsoft.com/IE/script/default.htm. This example illustrates both VBScript and JavaScript versions of a Mortgage calculator, as shown in Figure 36.6.
ActiveX documents revitalizes what were formerly called "DocObjects" and allows documents implemented with this technology to display within Internet Explorer. As you can see in Figure 36.7, Word documents display within Internet Explorer and essentially enable you to run Word within Internet Explorer.
ActiveX conferencing provides all the required capabilities of real-time conferencing over the Internet such as voice, data sharing using a "whiteboard" approach, and remote application sharing. The ActiveX conferencing API supports the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) standards such as T.120 for data conferencing. Microsoft has announced that ActiveX conferencing will be fully compliant with the full h.323 standard in the future. The adherence to these standards means that the applications developed using the ActiveX conferencing API will interoperate even though developed by competing companies. In Chapter 14, "Real-Time Conferencing with NetMeeting," you learned about the NetMeeting application, which is implemented using ActiveX conferencing. This application was actually initially created as a "proving ground" or test application but was found to be so well implemented that Microsoft decided to release it and to bundle it in future versions of Windows 95 and Windows NT.
The ActiveX Server Framework provides another dimension to the server side of the Web. Embracing the Internet Server API or ISAPI, this new technology adds server-side scripting in a similar fashion to ActiveX scripting. Using the ActiveX Server Framework, you can add dynamic content to the server side of the Web with Internet Information Server (IIS). The ActiveX Server Framework encompasses all the methods of scripting a Web server as well as the ability to add functionality with DLLs or ActiveX components. The newly announced Merchant server will be implemented using the ActiveX Server Framework, fully illustrating the extensibility of this technology.
All these technologies are detailed in the ActiveX SDK, which you can download from http://www.microsoft.com/intdev/sdk/. Besides detailed documentation for each of the technologies, the SDK includes samples that will help you use the technologies as well. Figure 36.8 shows some of the information and sample applications that are delivered with the SDK.
To download all the Internet tools available from Microsoft, look at
http://www.microsoft.com/workshop/download.htm.
Before I leave the subject of new programming enhancements for the Web, I should mention the Internet Control Pack. This collection of free ActiveX components provides the functionality of several Internet tools, including an FTP or HTTP client. With these components, you can create your own Web browser or FTP client using Visual Basic. The Internet Control Pack is available at http://www.microsoft.com/icp/, as shown in Figure 36.9. Included with the Control Pack are sample applications that you can use as is or add to your own projects. It even includes an HTML control that you can use to create your own Web browser or your own version of an HTML parser to check your documents for accuracy.
Several other Microsoft tools that exploit ActiveX technology are available, and many more from other companies will become available in the months to come. I mention a few of the new Microsoft tools in the remaining sections of this chapter. Microsoft has called its current direction "Activating the Internet," and that is exactly what it is doing!
An exotic location is the next stop in our brief tour of the new and exciting technology that is to come. And like its name, it's almost as mysterious! Jakarta has been the code name for Microsoft's Java compiler, which is now officially named "Visual J++" to fit the other Visual programming environments from Microsoft. But, it hasn't seen the light of day yet except in enticing demos at trade shows and the inevitable "leaks" of beta copies to the trade press. Jakarta promises to do for Java what Visual Basic did for the Basic language except Basic was virtually dead in programming circles and Java is just about all you read about anywhere! Look briefly at Microsoft's Java implementation before you get back to Jakarta—of Visual J++.
Java is the "platform neutral" programming language developed by Sun Microsystems for application execution and delivery over the Internet. Because Java applications or applets aren't compiled for a specific operating system or hardware platform, a Java applet can be developed on an SGI computer running IRIX, placed on a SUN Sparc Webserver running Solaris, and then be downloaded and run on an Intel PC running Windows 95 or even Linux. The applet will run as it was designed on each of these disparate platforms. This is the beauty of Java. It is not a trivial task to learn to program in Java; it is quite similar to programming in C++.
For the best introduction to Java get Presenting Java (Sams Publishing, ISBN 1-57521-039-8) or if you are a programmer looking for the fast track to Java look at Teach Yourself JAVA in 21 Days (Sams Publishing, ISBN 1-57521-030-4).
At this writing, Microsoft has delivered Java support in the Internet Explorer beta, and this first look is quite impressive. What is to come is the Just in Time (JIT) compiler and the addition of Java into the base operating system. The JIT compiler is a component that will compile the Java bytecode as it streams onto the system making execution of the applet much faster. The Java Virtual Machine, or VM, will become a component of Windows proper so that you will potentially be able to run Java applets without a browser at all.
The most interesting fact of Microsoft's Java implementation might be that when it is created with J++, Java applets will be "wrapped" as an ActiveX component enabling Java applets to be scripted using ActiveX Scripting or even used just like any other ActiveX component. And that takes us back to Jakarta.
Visual J++ will bring to the Java programmer the ability to create applications for the Internet and create those applets as ActiveX controls to use in other applications. You will be able to create Java applets that run on the server using the ActiveX Server Framework as easily as for the client. Visual J++ promises to bring a whole class of programmers into the world of Windows programming through the trip to Jakarta.
Using the ActiveX Server Framework, Microsoft is adding significant value to the server side of the Web equation. With tools like dbWeb and the Search Server (which you might have read about as Tripoli), Microsoft is adding significant new features to the already excellent Internet Information Server. Internet Information Server (IIS) is the Web server that powers http://www.microsoft.com/ and is the server used for world-class sites like http://oscars.guide.com/, the interactive guide to the Oscars. IIS 1.0 was released early in 1996 for Windows NT Server 3.51, and it quickly became one of the most popular servers on the Net. IIS won critical acclaim from many reviewers, and continues to do so today.
With the release of NT 4.0, Microsoft is adding IIS 2.0 and Microsoft FrontPage to NT Server and for the first time releasing the Peer Web Services for NT Workstation 4.0. Peer Web Services are designed to provide HTTP, FTP, and Gopher servers for anyone running Windows NT or Windows 95. These full-featured servers can run ActiveX Server Framework applications such as the Search Server. Figures 36.10 and 36.11 show the Internet Service Manager for the Peer Web Services and the Properties dialog box for configuring the WWW service. They are virtually identical to the dialog boxes for IIS on NT Server, and they provide similar functionality.
The Microsoft Search Server, which will ship with NT Server 4.0, adds a powerful search engine to IIS 2.0. Using the Search Server, you can not only search HTML documents but also the contents of all Microsoft's Office documents such as Word, Excel, or PowerPoint documents. Because the Search Server is extensible, you can add additional search capability for other formats as well, making the Search Server one of the most extensible search engines for the Web. Figure 36.12 shows the result of a search for "ActiveX Server Framework," which has found a PowerPoint presentation among other documents.
Another tool designed using the ActiveX Server Framework is dbWeb. Unlike using CGI programming for database applications, dbWeb is implemented as a Windows NT service using the ISAPI interface to communicate to the client and the Web server. Because dbWeb "talks" directly to the database, the speed of queries is remarkable. Using dbWeb is straightforward, yet dbWeb provides access to such industry standard databases as Microsoft SQL Server, ORACLE, or any ODBC-compatible database. To download a copy of dbWeb or for more information, look at
http://www.microsoft.com/intdev/dbweb/
Microsoft has announced several other server products that might be available by the time this book is in print; these products add to the high end of the server offerings. The Merchant server, "Normandy," and the Proxy server round out Microsoft's server technology with a complete range of server solutions. The Merchant server has the additional tools required to conduct business over the Internet with such built-in features as catalogs, Web "shopping cart" applications to keep track of purchases, and other tools for Web commerce. The recently announced "Normandy" technology builds on the Merchant server base and adds all the associated infrastructure that an online service such as CompuServe requires to service millions of users worldwide. By the end of 1996 or early 1997, CompuServe plans to move its entire service to the Web using Normandy to provide all the services that it offers today with its proprietary tools.
The Proxy server, or Catapult as it has been called during the Beta cycle, adds proxy services to IIS. Proxy services are popular for companies that want to manage the Internet access of their users. When you configure Internet Explorer to use a Proxy server, Web requests are actually performed by the Proxy server. One of the best features of the Proxy server is that it caches files locally, so pages that are regularly visited by a large number of the proxy users are already cached locally, speeding access for everyone. An additional feature of Microsoft's Proxy server is that if you want to provide Internet services to everyone in your company but don't want to put everyone on the Internet, you can use IPX/SPX and Winsock 1.1 to connect. The Proxy server has an added ability to preload popular pages in its cache to further enhance performance. Using IIS and the Proxy server will enable an entire company to connect to the Internet easily without the extra expense and effort of adding additional network protocols.
Another tool that is expected to surface or resurface later in 1996 is Internet Studio, which was formerly known as "Blackbird." Originally created to produce content for the Microsoft Network, Internet Studio is being redesigned as the "high-end" tool to create active content for the Web. Going beyond the current or planned capability of FrontPage, Internet Studio is expected to provide tools to create dynamic sites that push the envelope of Web technology.
Microsoft is releasing a number of applications for the Internet that represent cutting-edge technology. In addition to Web-enabling Office 97, Microsoft has introduced Comic Chat, an IRC chat program with a difference. As you can see in Figure 36.13, the Comic Chat home page at
http://www.microsoft.com/ie/comichat/
reveals that Comic Chat is not your usual straightlaced business application.
Figure 36.13. The Comic Chat home page gives a hint of the non-business nature of the application.
Comic Chat is an avatar-based chat program. Avatars are alter egos used to represent participants graphically in a chat. Instead of just the usual text-based chat, Comic Chat represents the participants using cartoon characters, with the ability to express certain emotions using variations of the character's images. This ability coupled with the way that Comic Chat provides instant visual feedback of an unfolding conversation adds a natural if comical feeling to online chats. Figures 36.14, 36.15, and 36.16 show images of a conversation in progress using Comic Chat.
Figure 36.14. Comic Chat uses cartoon characters to impersonate participants.
Figure 36.16. Download Comic Chat and join in the fun!
Nowhere does Microsoft's plans for the Net come into closer focus than when they talk about changing the Internet Explorer. Because the Web has taken off over the last couple of years, people have begun to use their Web browsers more and more. The browser has become the single software tool that just about every computer user uses with some regularity. Arguments of the relative merits of one browser over another approach the ferocity of religious wars. If you follow the browser threads on the Usenet or msnews.microsoft.com, you'll see people verbally attacking others because of their preferences for a browser. This fighting results because the Web browser has become ubiquitous. People "live" in their browsers. They start surfing the Net when they turn on the PC in the morning, and it's the last application that they shut down before calling it a day.
I'm not taking sides in today's browser wars, but Microsoft does have some very interesting features in store in the form of future versions of Internet Explorer. In addition to the capabilities that are already being introduced such as ActiveX documents, Microsoft intends to provide an upgrade to Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0 that will deliver a new Active Desktop, which in effect integrates the browser with the operating system. With the Active Desktop, your whole desktop resembles the browser. As Figure 36.17 shows, the Active Desktop integrates several new features throughout the interface of Windows 95.
The "Nashville" interface for Windows 95 was in early Beta at this writing. Microsoft might add additional features or remove existing ones before release.
As you can see from this figure, many additions are planned for this new release. Look at some of the more obvious additions first, and then I'll mention the more subtle changes. If you are familiar with the Windows 95 interface, you'll immediately notice the addition of the Browse the Web selection on the Start Menu. This feature, shown separately in Figure 36.18, gives you access to the Start Page, a Web Search, and the new Smart Favorites, which assist in tracking changes on favorite sites.
Figure 36.18. The Active Desktop adds a "Browse the Web" selection from the Start Menu.
When you select the Start Page, the page opens within Internet Explorer but not in a separate window. Instead, the browser opens up inside the Windows Explorer, as shown in Figure 36.17. Another place that the new interface shows up is in any of the standard explorer views such as in Control Panel. As you can see in Figure 36.19, Control Panel looks similar to an HTML page when the Web view is chosen as the default view.
With the release of the Active Desktop, Microsoft wants to remove the feeling that Internet Explorer is an application that you run. Instead, Microsoft's "information at your fingertips" takes another step toward realization. If you want to open a file on your computer, browse the Web, or read your e-mail, Microsoft wants the operating system itself to provide all the features you need to do these seemingly disparate functions.
This section concludes your investigation of the new technologies and applications that promise to take Internet Explorer into the next level of the Web revolution. In the last chapter, you look even further into the future as you look at what the future might hold for the world of the Web.
You've almost finished the tour of Microsoft's Internet technologies. The last chapter attempts to put on the long-distance vision and see what the future might hold for the Internet and Internet Explorer. Because of the fast pace of Internet development, a year on the Web is about equivalent to the lifetime of a fruit fly, which I'm told is about three weeks. The Internet itself is also changing as new technologies are introduced to add bandwidth to an already overtaxed infrastructure.
