Accessing AFP Servers

AFP Engage! can initiate access to AFP servers in several ways:

• Use the "Browse AFP Servers" window (only works within an intranet)
• Click on an AFP URL link in an HTML or email document
• Enter a URL directly into AFP Engage!
• Apple Events from other applications

Each method is covered in a section below.

The "Browse AFP Servers" Window

The easiest way to use AFP Engage! to initiate access to AFP servers is to use AFP Engage! 2.0's "Browse AFP Servers" window to dynamically locate and display AFP servers targeted through ShareWay IP 2.0 and later. The AFP Engage! machine must be running Mac OS 8.5 or later for this window to be available. Choose "Browse AFP Servers..." from the File menu. The "Browse AFP Servers" window appears as shown below in Figure 1.

AFP Engage! periodically uses the Service Location Protocol to query the local intranet for ShareWay IP 2.0 (and later) servers that have registered on the network. All such servers are displayed in the window's list. Selecting a server displays information in the "Server Information" area, including the server's AFP URL, the server name and, if AppleTalk zones are present, the zone name in which the server resides. To initiate access to a server, double-click the server, or select it and click "OK".

The busy indicator at the top of the window is present whenever AFP Engage! is searching for ShareWay IP servers. When the window is first brought up, there may be a delay of a few seconds before the busy indicator appears.

AFP URL Links

Clicking a link in an HTML or email document can initiate access to an AFP server if the link contains an AFP URL. Processing AFP URLs in Eudora documents is discussed below. To process AFP URLs in HTML documents, AFP Engage! must be registered as an AFP helper. When AFP Engage! is first launched, it automatically registers with whatever Web browser is running (if any) and with Internet Config or the Internet Control Panel (Mac OS 8.5 and later). After its first launch, AFP Engage! can be registered with a Web browser by launching the browser and choosing "Register as AFP Helper" from AFP Engage's File menu.

Should you ever want to deregister AFP Engage!, launch your browser and choose "Unregister as AFP Helper" from AFP Engage's File menu.

Using AFP Engage! with Eudora

Eudora 3.0 or later will automatically recognize and highlight any URL enclosed in angle brackets (for instance <afp://afp.opendoor.com>). The first time you click on a highlighted AFP URL, Eudora will ask you to select the helper app to use to process that URL. Simply select AFP Engage! and it will be used to process that URL and all other AFP URLs from then on (if you ever want to change the helper app selected, hold down the option key while clicking). Eudora versions through 3.1 will not, however, automatically recognize AFP URLs that are not enclosed in angle brackets. To use AFP Engage! to process such URLs, you can command-click the URL (select the whole URL and then click it while holding down the command key). It is also possible to teach Eudora 3.x to automatically recognize AFP URLs through a procedure documented in the release notes.

Direct Entry of AFP URLs

AFP Engage! can be used to open URLs directly, eliminating the need to go through a Web browser or other Internet application. To open an AFP URL directly from AFP Engage!, choose "Open URL" in the File menu. A dialog box appears, listing the last URL which AFP Engage! has accessed since it was run. To open a new URL, you can either modify the URL listed by AFP Engage! or type or paste in a new URL.

Apple Events From Other Applications

AFP Engage! will work with any application which sends it a standard GetURL (GURL) or OpenURL (OURL) Apple Event. These Apple Events are documented at http://www.scripting.com/midas/geturl.html.

Preferences

The Preferences window is shown below in Figure 1.

Automatically quit when finished - If checked, tells AFP Engage! to quit after processing each AFP URL; otherwise, AFP Engage! remains in memory. AFP Engage! takes 1 MB of RAM; leaving it in memory makes processing AFP URLs somewhat faster, since AFP Engage! doesn't have to reload for each URL.

Allow server login messages to appear - If not checked, means you won't see the same greeting every time you connect to an AppleShare server which has the login message feature enabled.

Display status window - If checked, tells AFP Engage! to display a status window as it is processing AFP URLs.

Pathname processing - You can tell AFP Engage! to take one of two basic actions when it processes an AFP URL:

• Don't process pathnames in URLs - Just mount the volume indicated in the URL on the desktop. The volume appears on the desktop as though it were a local drive.
  
  
• Process pathnames in URLs - Mount the server and process pathnames in URLs. See the next two choices.

If you choose to process pathnames in URLs, you can also choose to:

• Just open the indicated folder - If a folder is specified in the URL, AFP Engage! tells the Finder to open a window displaying the contents of the deepest folder in the path.
  
  
• Try to open the indicated file - This option pertains to a file being specified in the URL. There are two choices here:
  
  
  • Try to open with Web browser first - AFP Engage! tells your browser, if it is running, to display the file if AFP Engage! believes the file is of a type which your browser will understand (for example, if it has an extension of ".html" or ".txt", or the equivalent Macintosh file type). If this option has not been checked, or AFP Engage! believes the file is not browser-readable, AFP Engage! tells the Finder to open the file as though it had been double-clicked.
    
    
  • Ask first or Ask if can't open with browser - If "Try to open with Web browser first" is checked, this option will read "Ask if can't open with browser first"; otherwise, it will read "Ask first." Opening a file through the Finder may mean that the file is an application, or that an application will be launched to open the file. If you are unsure of the contents of the file or if you wish to download the file rather than opening it, you may not wish to have the Finder launch an application. If this option is checked, AFP Engage! will verify that you want to open the file and give you the option of just opening the enclosing folder instead.

Online Help

With OS 8.5 and later, online help for AFP Engage! is available. When properly installed (see Installation in "Getting Started"), help is accessible in two ways:

• From the Help menu's Help Center - Select "Help Center" from the Help menu, and then click on "AFP Engage! Help".
• As an item in the Help menu (OS 8.6 and later) - With AFP Engage! running, select "AFP Engage! Help" from the Help menu, or use its keyboard shortcut of cmd-?.

Either method will invoke AFP Engage!'s's online help, which is structured much like this user guide.

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