Easy Web publishing. (askSam Systems' askSam Web Publisher Professional Edition 2.0) (Software Review)(Evaluation)

Picture this scenario. You have a 300-to-400 page policy and procedure manual, and your boss wants you to put it on your corporate Intranet by the end of the week. Time to change jobs? Don't despair--askSam has the solution.

askSam is a freeform Windows database product targeted at organizations needing to maintain documentation, catalogs, policy and procedures manuals, or text documents. The principle strength of askSam is that it doesn't require you to know a lot about databases: You don't have to be "technical" to create an easily maintainable database.

askSam has extended this ease-of-use to the askSam Web Publisher. If you're using askSam's database software now, you'll be well on your way to migrating information to the Web in an afternoon, and if you're new to the product, you'll find you're up and running in no time at all. askSam's Web Publisher incorporates a nicely featured, full-text search engine, which lets you perform and customize searches, and updates of askSam databases.

While many web publishing tools are aimed at the webmasters who create and design web sites, askSam Web Publisher is geared toward those responsible for maintaining volumes of data posted to the Web or to corporate Intranets. For these people, learning HTML or converting existing documentation to HTML presents a formidable energy expenditure, and in many cases poses an insurmountable problem.

The askSam Web Publisher lets you convert existing documents into one or several easily maintained databases, and shields you from the need to master HTML. Additionally, askSam's Web Publisher lets you harness a search engine with no CGI scripting, and save information entered into an HTML form directly into an askSam database via the Web.

Setting up your askSam database

The first step is to create a database in askSam. You can enter data into your database using form-like data entry, or by importing documents, such as word processing files, electronic forum messages, e-mail, or HTML files. askSam stores data in a database file with an .ASK extension. Upload this file to the document directory on your web server, and include a link to the database on your web page.

Figure 1 shows how the askSam engine acts as the CGI intermediary between your data store and a browser request. It's basically a CCI script in a box. The Web Publisher is launched by using a URL in which you specify the askSam engine executable, the askSam database file to use, and one of several possible …