WebHub Site Automation Framework
Site Design and Automation Specialists
Authorised Technical Support Centre
What is WebHub?
WebHub is a state-of-the-art Web site automation product from HREF Tools Corporation. Compared to other automation products for Windows 95 and NT, WebHub has some very significant advantages:
- Server independence. As the Web server market grows and evolves, WebHub permits migration from one server to another with zero code changes.
- Session management. WebHub automatically "saves state", ensuring that each surfer has their own, independent "session" when visiting your site. Many competing automation approaches completely fail to take account of this, resulting in situations where Surfer B can end up staring at Surfer A's data!
- Separation of HTML from programming. WebHub's structure means page layout can remain the province of Web designers, while programmers can concentrate on functionality, security, business rules and database connections.
- Surfer tracking. WebHub's HUBLOG feature allows each surfer's visit to be fully recorded for later analysis.
- Easy site maintenance. Strong support for reusable macros and HTML "chunks" means that URLs, headers, footers etc. which are used all over the site can be changed in just one location.
- Performance. Apart from its in-built performance features, WebHub allows you to develop fast, scalable Web applications using Borland Delphi, a robust, object-oriented and full-featured compiler language.
- Scalability. As site traffic grows, WebHub can scale performance by running additional copies of your Web applications, additional Web servers and even cross-server application execution using it's "Maitre-D'Hub".
- Database connectivity. Using the Borland Database Engine, ODBC or Borland's Client/Server links, WebHub applications can bring any of today's most popular database formats to the Web.
- High-level functionality. Out of the box, WebHub has support, customisable components or working demonstration code for:
- Form-mail processing (sending form data as email)
- Database table display
- File uploads
- Remote administration
- Scrollable/pageable table grids
- User authentication
- And quite a lot more! (see WebHub Demos)
WebHub is most suitable for applications which go beyond displaying some static pages and a few fields from a database. Tools which come with most of today's servers will usually go that far. WebHub excels where features like electronic commerce, custom searching, security, browser independence, sessions, dynamic pages, data entry and two-way communication (e.g. faxmail) are required. And it is ideal for getting the most value and performance from an Intranet.
A wide range of public Web sites worldwide have been built with WebHub, including our own TurboPress site automation software for publishers.
Why not download a trial version now?
Why Automated Sites?
High-impact Web sites fall into two categories:
- Those which look beautiful (though often at the expense of download time or browser independence)
- Those that WORK, providing a service or function which brings surfers back to them time and again. Covering everything from book catalogues and weather predictions to shopping malls, interactive puzzles and search engines, working Web sites are now making the running on the Web.
As time goes on, more and more effort is going into preparing material for web pages. Excellent new tools such as Microsoft Frontpage or Borland Intrabuilder have been developed to help this process along.
However, when your business information is already present in existing databases or documents, the ideal solution is to present this information with appropriate security and filtering while eliminating manual intervention or conversion steps. This process is another form of site automation.
Our WebHub-related Services
There are several ways we can help you get up to speed with WebHub:
- WebHub introduction and training — helping you or your development staff to get up to speed with WebHub, it's key features and benefits for an automated Internet or Intranet Web site
- Technical consultancy — leveraging your development efforts with on-site, telephone and email support
- WebHub site hosting, on our high-performance US-based Web server, or in New Zealand.
- Site co-development — you concentrate on the look-and-feel of your site and we'll produce the WebHub applications to make it hum
- Full site design and development, from needs analysis, initial specification, structural outline, graphical and user interface design through to software implementation, hosting, site status and reliability monitoring
- Consulting on site design, hosting and remote administration issues, especially for automated Web sites
- Complementary products, such as our TWebCompress component and WebQueue companion application, our Webview offline browser and Webwatch site monitor.
Some of the successful WebHub sites we've developed or consulted on include:
- Robert Foyle Books online bookstore, with warehousing, back-ordering, online ecommerce across three countries and 24 time zones.
- Skilcanect online IT recruiting site, holding CVs for 100,000+ IT professionals and run by a subsidiary of the Knight Ridder publishing conglomerate.
- Borland's "Developer Community" site, for which we provided WebHub applications and email/messaging management services
- NZSM Online — ten years of the New Zealand Science Monthly magazine online, fully searchable with subscription control, banner advertising, remote administration and reader services, powered by our TurboPress site automation software for publishers.
- Christchurch Polytechnic — a largely static site whose 1200 pages of course and paper related information are quickly generated from a database using WebHub.
- Elldridge Lynch International's currency trading site, which has password-protected web pages which are automatically updated with ELI's latest rates every few minutes. We used WebHub and Web communication tools to produce the software necessary for this behind-the-scenes work.
If we can help you with your WebHub or site automation planning and implementation, just ask!
WebHub Resource List
Key links to the HREF Tools Corp site:
Code and Technical Information
What you can do with WebHub, and Why
