Press Contact: John O’Fallon
Phone: (630) 830-1113
Fax: (630) 830-1262
E-Mail: john@maxum.com
Maxum Development Announces Release
Of NetForms 2.5 Upgrade
January 13, 1998 — Maxum Development Corporation, a leading developer of
Macintosh Web server tools, announces the release of NetForms 2.5, a major
revision to the popular Web server forms-handling application. NetForms,
along with it’s sister product NetCloak, was the first commercial Web
server tool ever introduced for Macintosh. The new version adds dozens of
new capabilities, improved support for the wide range of servers available
for the Mac OS, improved security, and more. NetForms 2.5 begins shipping
today, and a demonstration version and upgrade package can be downloaded
from “www.maxum.com”.
“We’ve improved virtually every aspect of NetForms with this release,” said
Chris Patterson, Product Manager for NetForms at Maxum Deveopment. “There
are new commands, extensions to old commands, more robust e-mail handling,
improvements in file handling, and numerous new security features.”
NetForms Overview
NetForms is run on a Mac-based Web server and allows the Web developer to
build simple HTML forms that can be processed in a variety of ways.
NetForms provides forms-to-e-mail and simple data storage functions, but
it’s most powerful capability is in enabling Web users to create entirely
new Web pages using only a standard browser. Here is a small sampling of
the types of applications that can be easily created with NetForms:
* Maintain a site Guestbook
* Let students add their essays to the school Web site
* Post meeting notes on the company Intranet
* Host a discussion bulletin board
* Prototype entire data management solutions
* Manage a company or school on-line newspaper
* Let non-technical people create their own Home Pages
* Create on-line questionnaires
* Set up a “classified ad” section of a Web site
* Post job openings and resumes
* Build a FAQ list about a product, company or school
New Features of NetForms 2.5
Improved Server Compatibility – NetForms now fully supports the wide range
of popular Web servers available for the Mac OS, including “virtual domain”
capable servers .
New Commands – New commands make it easier to create new Web pages, and
allow more control over the formatting of user-entered portions of a page.
Conditionals have been expanded to include “equals”, “not equals”, “begins
with”, “contains”, “ends with”, and “in” comparison tests. Other new
commands provide virtually unlimited date and time handling capabilities.
Improved Mail Handling – NetForms can now send mail to multiple recipients
and carbon copy additional people, simplifying sending messages to any
number of e-mail accounts. Mail messages that can’t be sent for any reason
are now stored in an archive on the server, so no form submission is ever
lost. Plus, messages are stored on disk until they are successfully sent so
that server restarts or crashes don’t affect mail delivery.
Security Lock-outs – Numerous security improvements have been made that
makes NetForms extremely safe even in open server environments. NetForms
can now disallow submissions that contain NetForms commands, effectively
blocking users from creating their own NetForms files on the server. In
addition, submissions from forms on other servers can be blocked,
preventing “hijacking” of forms. Individual NetForms files can now be
limited to the folder in which they reside, which is essential in
multi-user environments, and NetForms can also be set to disallow
processing of files based on either file creator code or file name.
Advanced Features – Maxum has added a range of additional features
including: extended character conversion, simplified page management,
automatic folder creation, completely dynamic response pages, GET or POST
request handling, and more.
NetForms 2.5 is a free upgrade for all existing NetForms customers .
Complete information can be found on Maxum’s Web site at “www.maxum.com”.
Maxum products are available through DevDepot
(http://www.devdepot.com), mailto:orders@devdepot.com, Toll free:
800-MACDEV-1, Outside US/Canada: 805-494-9797, Fax: 805-494-9798.
About Maxum
Founded in 1991, Maxum Development is a leading developer of commercial
World Wide Web server tools for business and education. Maxum products,
NetCloak and NetForms, were the first commercial tools for Macintosh-based
WWW servers and have since become industry mainstays. All Maxum products
are designed to enhance the function and performance of Web sites by making
them dynamic, interactive, reliable, secure, fast, and accessible.