Luke,
Nice to see you!
I've read a few posts on the lists on how people have integrated 4D / Webstar / Active4D.
I'm not 100% sure of the advantages of doing this.
Would someone who has done this explain the benefits of putting Webstar into the mix.
Perhaps Luke could chime in here?
best
James.
James,
It depends on what you and your customers needs are.
For me the biggest advantage of integrating Webstar with Active4D comes from working for a customer that has a pre-existing WebSTAR web site with many static pages and images. Active4D can serve this type of content, i.e, straight HTML pages, but IMO a product like WebSTAR is better suited to doing this. Also, the web designers who manage the sites static pages are used to working with WebSTAR. They can reference A4D pages but can't edit them. Using both systems allows you to better manage the separation of content and business logic.
By using WebSTAR, Rewrite and Active4D (using an ITK web server), Active4D is almost transparent to the end user. They have no idea that Active4D pages are served from a different server. This concept also can be extended to a WebSTAR server that serves a number of virtual hosts. All of these hosts have the potential to share a single back end database through Active4D.
Another advantage comes where the web server is in the open, but Active4D is running in a 4D database (on server, in multiple clients, or in standalone 4D) that is behind a firewall. This allows you to secure your database.
The downside of putting Webstar is that it adds an additional tier to your architecture, i.e, there is one more piece to manage. This means a web master may have to at least become familiar with A4D administration. It may also mean that a 4D developer might have to become a web master.
There is also a bug in the current version of WebSTAR Rewrite. If the Active4D database isn't accessible (or isn't running) the proxy doesn't generate an error and simply returns a blank page. 4D Inc. has noted this.
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