About NetVIOS
Installing NetVIOS
Developing with NetVIOS
NetVIOS Organization

About NetVIOS

What Is NetVIOS?
A website operating system. A parallel to demonstrate the role of a web OS to a website is that of the PC OS to a PC. Applications you install on a PC do not mandatorily have to be created based on the OS but from the base programming language (which is actually machine language). Then these applications will have their own separate file systems, user systems, access, permission, and security systems and multiple ways of achieving similar functions. To avoid this situation, almost all PC applications make use of the OS's file system, user base and system, security system etc to achieve uniformity of function and ease of learning, and to save unnecessary duplication of function. In a similar way, NetVIOS organizes website functions into a fundamental set in the most general way so that it can serve any web application installed on it. This includes the user system, file system, feature and customization system, help, etc. In addition, NetVIOS is bundled with applications including forums, chat, site-based IM, site events and scheduling, news, forms generation etc. to ensure that it's usefulness is maximized right out of the box.

Is NetVIOS a Portal Server?
NetVIOS can serve as more than a portal server. You may create and maintain portal pages, maintain several user types and roles and present information in multiple ways from different sources. However, unlike a portal server, NetVIOS presents a base to serve other applications in an organized way. Other developers can also create applications that run on NetVIOS in much the same way as PC applications install on the PC OS. This is because of the structure and the open, published API. Our philosophy is to consider a portal server as a special application of a general website operating system (See the article "Enterprise Portals - A Subset of a General Class of Applications").

Is NetVIOS an Application Server Like WebSphere, Weblogic etc.?
NetVIOS has underlying tools for creating applications much like an application server. The functional APIs forming the NetVIOS system provide a basis for generating application logic in an n-tier layer that includes the data, application logic, presentation logic, and presentation layers. The functions in NetVIOS are quite advanced such as to facilitate RAD of most application features. Integration is assured in terms of look, uniformity of functions and user data, access, permissions and security when applications are developed for NetVIOS. However, NetVIOS does not provide a workbench or programming environment for coding the final applications. Because of the open nature of the system, you may utilize tools like Microsoft's Visual Interdev, php scripting environment, or even a simple text editor to create applications in NetVIOS. For applications based on a custom component, the component may be created with any third-party COM object creation environment such as Microsoft's Visual Studio or Visual Studio.Net.

Why can't I compose a web OS from the various scripts and applications out there?
Firstly, cobbling together the full functionalities of a web OS will require that you be very technical and will end up costing you more (in time and resources). Secondly, a good portion of the functionalities embedded in NetVIOS are simply not available out there (based on patent-pending technology). Thirdly, developing your website based on loose scripts and applications will leave you with a system that is difficult to grow, difficult to maintain, probably has multiple login and disimilar way of achieving similar functions, and will become obsolete in months. Finally, having a web OS supporting your website assures you that improvements in web technology (XML, XHTTP, Services, etc. which are improving daily through the W3C) are continuously available to your website. Without this, your site after a few months will be obviously behind in useful features available through current technology. It will take a significant amount of continuous programming to keep up. We believe that in the near future it will be virtually inconceivable to have your website not based on a web OS. A few decades ago, a PC could only be operated by trained technicians. This is the case today with websites except that the trained technicians are now called web administrators. NetVIOS empowers non-programmers (and programmers) with the technology to own and maintain their own website like they do their PC allowing programmers to focus on the job of creating web applications.

Installing NetVIOS

I have a website already hosted with my web provider. How do I run NetVIOS on it?
The website you have needs to support active server pages. In addition, for the current NetVIOS component, your web site should be Windows based. You may check this with your provider. Most providers support Windows-based web hosting. Then you may download free NetVIOS files, database and component (dll). You will get your web host to install the component for you on their server as well as create a DSN (data source name) of the database you downloaded. Then you will simply follow the installation instructions necessary to initialize your website.

I wish to receive a username input on a form. I do not wish that the User Register pop-up to allow this selection. Using the ‘User’ guitype will automatically pop-up the User Register. How do I get round this?
If you do not wish to have a user selected, use a simple Input guitype rather than the User guitype to receive a user’s login name. Then the burden is on you to receive this input and verify that the specified user exists on the site or return an appropriate error message.

I am creating a page in which a user may enter another user’s alias in order to communicate with them. I notice that there is a ‘User’ guitype but this guitype expects a login name. Is there an equivalent for an Alias.
You may use a simple Input guitype and handle the error on the input on receiving the variable. This you might do by checking if the user exists.

Why is it that I may not change the name or identifier of the Everyone user group.
The Everyone user group is system generated and may not be deleted or renamed. However, if you do not wish to use this group, you may simply ignore it and create another user group (with a name you prefer), and automatically assign your site's users to it upon registration. Future versions of NetVIOS may allow you to rename the Everyone user group.