Active C Pages

Introduction

It acts just like a normal web server for typical web content (such as .html, .jpeg, .gif etc), but unlike a web server, it offers a built in application development tool - Active C Pages or ACP.

ACP was developed to allow the development of modules. These modules are categorised in two ways:

• Service Modules are modules which provide web services such as cgi, proxies, and other general purpose request/content handlers
• Application Modules are modules that provide a UI for a specific application

The distinction between the two types in terms functionality provided is that a Service Modules should be considered as a generic component, while the Application Modules are simply that - specific to an application.

In terms of development there is little distinction between the two. There is one additional step involved in the registration of a Service Module - this involves telling the web server which request patterns are handled by the module, and where the module is located.

This overview introduces you to the development of each of these types of modules.