Main page and HTML or asp?

[hockeylvr]

I can't seem to grasp this-I have created ASP pages to work with Access. This will go on our Intranet. My question is, what exactly will my users click on when they want to use the site? Will I create a link with an .asp extension or should the first page be an HTML page? I would like them to first be directed to the login.asp page. I have tried to find the answer to this in several forums and books but it must be so obvious that no one else needs to ask!

Thanks!

Toni

 

[sodakotahusker]

The answer is fairly simple. An ASP page is a page with server side processing that allows you to perform tasks before the page is loaded to the client. The result of an ASP page is HTML. The client always gets HTML. If you need special processing on the server (such as reading a database and verifying a password/logon - sounds like you need ASP. Hope this helps.

 

[Genimuse]

The only trick is that ASP needs to be served through the web server and can't be opened as a file by the users directly, so you wouldn't point them to a

file

URL but rather to an

http

url through your intranet web server.

If you wanted them to be directed to the login page then you'd either end up with an IP-based address or one with the name of the computer, like:

    [URL unfurl="true"]http://127.123.456.789/login.asp[/URL]

or

    [URL unfurl="true"]http://servername/login.asp[/URL]

There may be a variety of changes to that: if you're using virtual directory there will be something before the "login.asp", and if you are using a particular port then that will need to be in the url as well (like

servername:8080

). Are you administering IIS and the network yourself? If not you should be able to ask your network admin for the right path.

 

[hockeylvr]

Thank you both! This has really helped me understand the concept of asp!

Toni

 

[DreXor]

another item you can do is to edit the server properties ( IIS ) and add login.asp as a default page, and move it to the top of the list, should someone access the website without a pagename, they will default to login.asp