DYNAMIC CONTENT Dynamic content is any web content that is processed by the web server before sending the results to the web browser. In contrast, static content is content which is sent to the browser without modification. Common forms of dynamic content are Active Server Pages (ASP), Java Server Pages (JSP), Cold Fusion (CF), and HyperText Processor (PHP) pages.  WebSite Director (WSD) can manage any form of dynamic content that uses normal files that reside on the web server.  Although these files can also retrieve content from databases, the current release of WSD cannot be used to manage the database content. Dynamic Content Preview Directory When you use WSD to View or Preview with static content, WSD will send the View or Preview request directly to the web browser.  When you View or Preview dynamic content, WSD uses a "Dynamic Content Preview Directory" to temporarily publish the request so it can be processed by the web server as it is delivered to the web browser. To set up a Dynamic Content Preview Directory, use the following steps: Create a directory (such as "/preview") under the Document Root directory of your web server.  This directory should be not be linked to from any pages on the web site.  Make the directory invisible during Submit New Request processing by marking it as a "Private Directory" as follows:  On the Application Desktop click System Administration; then click Maintain Web Site  On the Maintain Web Site screen, highlight the directory to be marked Private from the Directories and Documents list, and click Properties.  On the Directory Properties screen select the checkbox by Private Directory in the "Flags" list. Enter the directory in the Dynamic Content Preview Directory field on the System Configuration screen (accessed from the System Administration screen). Mime Types WSD identifies the type of content being worked on by using Internet-standard "Mime Types."  Each type is associated with the filename extension of a document.  Mime Types are also used by the web server to tell the web browser which type of content is being displayed so that the browser can determine how to display the content. WSD looks up the Mime Type for a given document by matching the filename extension with a Mime Type specified in a Mime Types file.  Unless a different Mime Types file is specified during installation, WSD uses a standard set of Mime Types. These types are contained in a file called "mime.types" that is installed in the WSD installation directory.  If the web server uses its own Mime Types file (Apache does, Microsoft Internet Information Server does not), you can configure WSD to use that Mime Types file. This can be done during installation by specifying the path to that Mime Types file, or  following installation by modifying the "MimeFile" configuration entry in the wsd.conf configuration file. If WSD is configured to use the web server's Mime Types file, WSD will always use the same Mime types used by the web server. Some web servers only use the filename extension, not Mime Types, to process certain forms of dynamic content (such as ASP or JSP pages).  Therefore, no standard Mime Types are associated with these content types. However, because WSD requires a Mime Type to process dynamic content,you may need to add new Mime Types for certain types of dynamic content. Suggested Mime Types for ASP and JSP pages are "application/asp" and "application/jsp" respectively.  You can add new Mime Types using the "Maintain Mime Types" screen. To access the Mime Types screens, click System Administration on the Application Desktop; then click System Configuration.  On the System Configuration screen click Mime Types, then select Add New Mime Types. To tell WSD to process a specific content type (using the associated Mime Type) as dynamic content during View and Preview, Go to the Maintain Mime Types screen , select the Mime Type and click Edit Mime Type.  On the Edit Mime Type screen select the "Dynamic Content" option for that Mime Type. Any Mime Type with that option selected will be passed through the web server for special processing using the Dynamic Content Preview Directory selected above. In addition to using the Edit Mime Types screen to set the Dynamic Content option, you can also select the following options: Allow online editing of that content  Support the use of Page Layout templates If the results of the web server's processing of the dynamic content contains relative URLs, you may also want to enable the "Use Base Href" option.  This option will tell WSD to insert a "BASE HREF" HTML tag at the beginning of the document.  The use of the BASE HREF tag may interfere with certain forms of dynamic content, so you may not wish to use that option for all types of dynamic content. Default Mime Types If WSD is unable to find a Mime Type for a given filename extension, it will use a default Mime Type of "text/plain." This is the same default Mime Type used by most web servers. The Netscape and Microsoft Internet Explorer browsers handle that default Mime Type differently. Netscape honors the Mime Type and will display the actual data in source form, even for binary files.  Microsoft Internet Explorer will ignore that Mime Type, however, and will try to figure out the type of content from the content data itself. This distinction is most apparent when using dynamic content that generates HTML output.  If a Mime Type is not defined for that type of dynamic content, Microsoft Internet Explorer will appear to render the resulting page properly (since it identifies the content as HTML and renders it accordingly). However, since it will not be processed as dynamic content, you may also see non-HTML scripting commands embedded in the output.  Netscape will display the source of the page as plain text.