Edit extension

Each file extension is associated with a Content Generator (CG) ALP module and settings for it. Select a file extension and click Edit to edit the settings for the CG associated with the selected file extension or click Remove to remove the association.

If the association is removed it may still be active if it is specified in the default ALP settings. This behavior is kept for compatibility with the previous ALP versions.

Add new file extension

Type the file extension you want to configure and then select the ALP Content Generator module to be associated with it. Note If you are using ASP pages in this application do NOT replace the .ASA files association with other settings. Such a replacement may lead to strange and unexpected results.

Content Generator

Select an ALP module to handle the specified extension. After clicking the Add button the default settings for this module will be applied and you will be allowed to edit them from the Edit extension form.

Restore defaults

Restore the default ALP application settings. All the edited settings will be lost. This is good if you have mistaken the ALP application configuration and you want to start over.

Delete the application

Deleting the application will remove the alp.application file from this directory. No other files will be affected. The directory will remain part of any parent application defined (explicitly or implicitly). See the ALP documentation for more information.

Brief information
Each ALP virtual site starts implicitly ALP application with the default ALP application settings. If there is no alp.application file ALP will use the defaults.
If in any directory alp.application file is present, then this directory and its subfolders will act as ALP application unless some of the subdirectories does not contain alp.application file in turn. In which case this folder will start new application - isolated from the parent application. This behavior is very similar to the IIS behavior and differs only in the way it is specified. In ALP the alp.application file define the application borders in the file system, while in IIS these settings are kept in an external storage.

Mime types

The files not handled by explicitly specified ALP modules are processed by the default ALP Content Generator (called RawSpool). This module supports some settings that can be configured on this page. The MIME types list allows you create file extension to MIME type associations which will cause ALP to report the specified MIME type to the browser whenever such a file is served. It is recommended to configure all the actually used resource file types, because there is no guarantee that the systems on which your application will run will have the same associations as on your own machine. Configuring them here will force ALP to report what you have specified.

See also the MIME type to file extension associations in the directory settings. You may need them if you generate in ASP page or a CGI applications certain files intended to open in certain external applications.

Browser

You can configure the ALP application to run only in ALPFrame browser and show error message if started in IE for example. If your application uses certain ALPFrame specific features this will prevent the users from starting it in a wrong environment.

Furthermore this restriction can be extended. You can configure the ALP application run only in ALPFrame browser started with a configuration with certain "application ID" - e.g. most often this will mean that you want this application to run only under ALPFrame configured especially for it.

While these two settings may look cosmetic they have also security meanings. ALPFrame supports browsing restrictions that can be used to configure it to disallow navigation to dangerous locations or even restricted to this application only. Therefore configuring the application to require ALPFrame and specific configuration will add more strength to the application security.

Site object expiration

One site object is created for each ALP site when the site is entered for the first time. The object will expire if it is not accessed for the specified period. In the current version no ALP modules use site objects.
ALP supports internally global object storages for the modules handling the requests. The expiration is controlled by ALP and not by the modules. Site storage has no equivalent in other WEB servers and engines, Application is equivalent to the ASP application in IIS. Session is equivalent to the ASP session. Note that not all the modules use all the global object storages.

Application object expiration

One application object is created for each ALP application when it is entered for the first time. The object will expire if it is not accessed for the specified period. In the current version only the ASP pages and RAW scripts use these objects. The other ALP modules will not be affected. Note that this means that in contrast to IIS the Application object in ASP pages will have limited life time. By using a huge value for its life time the IIS behavior is matched.

Session object expiration

One session object is created when an user enters for the first time certain ALP appliciation. In ALP the difference between the application and session objects is not considerable. However for compatibility reasons the session objects should have short expiration time (usually 20 - 60 min.).

Buffering

ALP buffers the output made by any module. This allows ALP to clear the output in certain situations or create temporary files if requested. The size of the output buffer limits the maximum content size that can be transferred through one ALP request/response sequence. For applications that use mostly HTML/images content 1MB buffer should be more than enough. Larger buffers may be needed if the application generates huge data.

Priority

Specifies the ALP worker threads priority. Most of the ALP modules do their work in separate threads and you change their priority here. Note that low priority may cause long delays if the system is busy with something else.