# ASP development with Dreamweaver and MacOSX



## ian27 (Dec 14, 2004)

Hi guys,

I'm just wondering if any of you have ever tried to develop ASP on a Mac. One of my bosses wants me to develop an e-commerce site for a client using Dreamweaver and ASP. At present I have very little experience with ASP, only PHP.

I'm aware that PC users have to install PWS to test ASP on their local server. I don't think it's possible to test ASP on a Mac local server (not without a PC emulator anyway) but it should be possible to test it remotely. 

Is it possible to set up Dreamweaver so that it automatically connects and uploads to a remote server when you want to preview a page?

I'm really stabbing in the dark on this one, so any advice or tales of past ASP/MacOSX experiences would be most helpful. 

Thank you. 

Ian


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## andehlu (Dec 14, 2004)

Theres an ASP module for apache that you should be able to compile (obviously no binary for osx apache).

http://www.apache-asp.org/


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## ian27 (Dec 16, 2004)

Hi andehlu, thanks for the link. I've just had a look at it now. So does this module allows you to test ASP files on your local server? I found the information on the module webpage a bit confusing.


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## agusgriego (Dec 16, 2004)

The easiest solution is to work on a remote WIN or LINUX server that supports ASP and have dreamweaver upload the files automatically

If you create a Site in dreamweaver, on Remote Info pane you can put your remote server's data and check the option that says "Atuomatically upload files to server on save".

Also you may want to set up a Testing Server (which can be the same as the one you entered in Remote Info). This will let you preview dynamic pages directly in dreamweaver.

Hope this helps,


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## andehlu (Dec 16, 2004)

ian27 said:
			
		

> So does this module allows you to test ASP files on your local server?



Yup. Its a complete ASP module for apache. If you dont know much about compiling src code, agusgriego is right another test server would be best. But ultimately if you have apache installed, just untar, cd to dir, ./make ./compile and that should do it...


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## ian27 (Dec 16, 2004)

Thanks to both of you - this is exactly the kind of information I've been looking for.

So when you have been developing ASP on your Mac, have you also integrating it with any database facilities? Any luck with MS Access (although I don't think a Mac version is available), and have you integrated it with MS SQL or perhaps MySQL if this is at all possible?

Cheers!

Ian


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## andehlu (Dec 16, 2004)

Ive never dealt with ASSP (oops did i misspell that  ) on any machine and hope to hell I never have to   I am straight PHP.  But the db connectivity of ASSP (oops i did it again) would be the same as any server side language connecting to a db, with syntax changes.

I doubt you can work with an access file on a mac even though I just googled it and there are odbc drivers for macs.....thats disgusting though. You could develop your app with mysql (keep all db connections as ONE include, easier to change later) and dump the db and reimport it on the machine running the access.


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## ian27 (Dec 18, 2004)

Hi andehlu. I'm looking at the Apache-ASP module now. It states that you need to have mod_perl installed prior to installing the module?!? I already have Apache installed and running, but would this also include the mod_perl part of the server? Is there a way I can find out?

I'll probably end up climbing the wall with this and giving up, but I might as well give it a go while I have a bit of time on my hands.  

Thanks. 

Ian


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## ian27 (Dec 18, 2004)

Ah-ha, just ran <? phpinfo(); ?> and that gave me my Apache settings information. No, I don't have mod_perl installed. Doh!!!


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## agusgriego (Dec 19, 2004)

You can use ASP with MSSQL Server. There's a great client called Aqua Data Studio that lets you access MSSQL 7, 2000 and a wide range of other db technologies.
As with MS Access you are with no luck. You can use Virtual PC or directly use a decent DB solution ;-)
hope this helps..


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## andehlu (Dec 20, 2004)

yes you would have to install mod_perl which ive never done.....


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## elander (Dec 21, 2004)

ian27 said:
			
		

> Ah-ha, just ran <? phpinfo(); ?> and that gave me my Apache settings information. No, I don't have mod_perl installed. Doh!!!



It doesn't show up, simply because you haven't activated it.

Open httpd.conf in a text editor, I prefer to use the terminal and pico ("sudo pico /etc/httpd/httpd.conf"). If you use another editor, outside Terminal, you have to be careful about character sets and line feeds (ASCII and Unix respectively). You'll also have to authenticate as an admin user, since normal users aren't allowed to change that document.

Delete the "#" on the line that says:
#LoadModule perl_module        libexec/httpd/libperl.so

When you're done, it should read like this:
LoadModule perl_module        libexec/httpd/libperl.so


Then you move down to the line where it says:
#AddModule mod_perl.c

Remove the "#" so the line reads like this instead:
AddModule mod_perl.c


Save the document and restart your webserver. Now mod_perl is active.


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## andehlu (Dec 21, 2004)

ah wicked thanks elander.... i tried but couldnt get it working cuz i didnt uncomment the second line....sweet.


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## ian27 (Dec 21, 2004)

agusgriego said:
			
		

> You can use ASP with MSSQL Server. There's a great client called Aqua Data Studio that lets you access MSSQL 7, 2000 and a wide range of other db technologies.
> As with MS Access you are with no luck. You can use Virtual PC or directly use a decent DB solution ;-)
> hope this helps..



Thanks for the information about Aqua Data Studio - it seems like a decent piece of kit. I haven't had a chance to look at it properly yet but I suspect it's something similar to Cocoa MySQL.

I really hope this client doesn't want to use MS Access. I do have Access on VPC but I HATE using it. VPC is just soooo slow!!!


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## ian27 (Dec 21, 2004)

elander said:
			
		

> It doesn't show up, simply because you haven't activated it.
> 
> Open httpd.conf in a text editor, I prefer to use the terminal and pico ("sudo pico /etc/httpd/httpd.conf"). If you use another editor, outside Terminal, you have to be careful about character sets and line feeds (ASCII and Unix respectively). You'll also have to authenticate as an admin user, since normal users aren't allowed to change that document.
> 
> ...



Hey elander, that's fixed it! Thank you so much for the very clear instructions. Amateurs like myself are very grateful for this approach.  

Cheers!

Ian


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