FileTrack parameters are explained below, with reference to the clickable example code in the left frame: you can click a parameter from the example code to jump to its explanation, or simply read this page from top to toe.
Most of FileTrack parameters have a default setting which is mentioned below. If the default setting is the option you'd like to use in your own implementation, you can leave that parameter out of your HTML code.
The 'Archive' attribute & 'CabBase' parameter
JAR (Java ARchive) and CAB (cabinet) files are archives containing Java class files in compressed form, making them easier to handle and quicker to download. Most modern browsers are able to read one or other of these formats, and the Archive attribute and CabBase parameter tell the browser the name of the archive file to open. The .JAR, .CAB and .CLASS files must all be in the same directory, and the CODEBASE= attribute is used in the normal way, if required, specifying the absolute or relative location of this directory. Older browsers that are unable to read either the JAR or the CAB file will instead read the loose CLASS files.
Applet Width & Height
Since much of FileTrack's display consists of unknown variables (modification date, whether a file is regarded as 'new', etc) determining an exact width is impossible. Instead, the aim is to set a width that's sufficient to display the longest possible entry that could ever be displayed. Some tips for setting applet width are given in FileTrack & Java Security.
The applet height is far simpler since it can be determined by your choice of Font, the number of entries displayed, and whether SplitLines is set to 'yes' or 'no'. After setting the applet as you want it, set Testmode to 'yes', move the mouse over the applet and read the suggested height from the statusbar. It's recommended that you always determine applet dimensions using Netscape Navigator, since this applet requires more display space than any other.
Copyright
This parameter must be included or the applet will not run, whether registered or unregistered. To prevent mistakes we recommend that you copy/paste it into your code from the Getting Started page: it is case-sensitive, single-spaced throughout and should appear on a single line. If there's a problem with this parameter, you'll see a status-bar message that reads "Copyright parameter missing or incorrect" which should lead you to the problem.
BgColor
A hex triplet specifying the background color of the applet, which will fill the entire applet dimensions. The default value is FFFFFF (white).
FocusBgColor
When the mouse moves over an entry, the background color of that entry can change, rather like the selector bars that appear on application menus. This parameter sets what that color should be. The default is to use the same color as your chosen BgColor, which of course means that no change will be made. If 3DButtons is set to 'yes', this background color will be drawn as a 3D selector, which looks subtle but effective if no FocusBgColor is specified (provided that your BgColor is almost anything except black or white).
DefaultTextColor
The color of the font used to display all the applet's text, taking a default of 000000 (black). You can specify separate colors for each entry on the menu using the TextColor parameters. The DefaultTextColor will be used for any entries that don't specify their own TextColors.
FocusTextColor
The color of the text of an entry when the mouse moves over it. The default is 0000C0 (medium blue).
PressTextColor
The text-color of an entry when clicked. The default is C00000 (medium red).
3DButtons
A simple non-case-sensitive yes or no, with a default of 'yes'. If set to 'yes', a 3D border will be drawn around an entry when the mouse moves over it, making it look like a button. When clicked, the 3D-ing is reversed, button-style. If you've specified a FocusBgColor, use this parameter to set whether the focused entry should have a menu-style selector bar appearance or a button-style appearance.
3DBorder
Another yes or no parameter, this time with a default of 'no'. If set to 'yes', a 3D border will be drawn around the edges of the applet area, giving it a slightly raised 'table' appearance.
Font
A comma-delimited string giving the name, style and size of the font you want to use for the text. The default settings are Dialog, in plain, at size 12, which would be written as Dialog,plain,12. Two important things to note: first, there must be no spaces in this entry; second, the three items must appear in the order name,style,size. Note that the style part of this setting can be plain, bold, italic or bolditalic, and these are not case-sensitive.
BoldText
Yet another yes or no parameter. The default is 'yes'. If set to 'yes', the Text part of each menu entry will use the same font name and size you specified in the Font parameter, but in bold style. This of course assumes that your Font does not already specify the bold style; if it does, this parameter will make no difference.
SplitLines
And one more yes/no parameter, defaulting to 'yes'. If 'yes', each entry on the menu will consist of two lines, the first containing the contents of the Text parameter, the second containing everything else. If 'no', the entire menu entry will be on a single line. Setting SplitLines to 'yes' makes an applet roughly twice as tall, but it needn't be as wide. The intention of SplitLines is to let you display a long Text description of a linked file without making the applet unreasonably wide, so if you prefer not to display Text descriptions, it's best to set this parameter to 'no'.
NonLinking
Getting tired of these yes/no parameters yet? This one defaults to 'no'. If you set it to 'yes', FileTrack becomes informational only. It will not react to the mouse in any way at all - no Focus colors when the mouse moves over an entry, and nothing happening when an entry is clicked.
SilentStart
It's yes or no again, defaulting to 'no'. When FileTrack starts, it has to read the properties of each URL listed before it can display them, as explained in FileTrack in Use. While doing this, it can display its progress in the statusbar in the form Retrieving file information: 1 of 12. This is useful information, but it could get confusing if you have more than one instance of FileTrack running at once, so you'd want them all to 'start silently' and you'd set this parameter to 'yes'.
ShowURL
A yes or no to whether the URLs that each entry relates to should be displayed. The default is 'yes'. Using the parameter below, you can specify how this is displayed.
UseShortURL
This yes/no parameter only takes effect if ShowURL is set to 'yes', and lets you choose whether to display just the filename being referred to ('yes') or the entire URL ('no'). The default is 'yes'. If you choose to display the entire URL, the applet will determine what they should be, even if you only enter relative URLs in the URL parameters.
ShowDate
A yes or no to whether the date of last-modification should be displayed. This is usually the date that the file was last uploaded to the server. The default is 'yes'.
UseLongDate
Yes or no again, defaulting to 'yes'. If set to 'yes', the displayed date will also include the time. This parameter is ignored if ShowDate is set to 'no'.
ShowSize
This yes/no parameter determines whether the size of the related file should be shown, again defaulting to 'yes'. The size will be displayed in bytes, k or Mb (with those suffixes added), according to which is the more appropriate way to display the result.
NewFileDays
The value for this parameter should be a number specifying how many days old a file should be before FileTrack stops regarding it as 'new'. Any file whose date falls within the 'new' period will have the word NEW! added to its entry. If the value of this parameter is 0 (which is the default), FileTrack will never include the word 'NEW!'. Whether or not you've chosen to display the date in the entry doesn't affect your use of this parameter: you can still let visitors know which files are 'new' without telling them when the file was last uploaded.
Target
Because FileTrack is intended to provide information and links about files for download, the question of browser frames and windows shouldn't arise. Nevertheless, you may still want to provide links to files that the browser can display. This parameter lets you specify the name of a target frame or window into which those links should be opened. This is a global parameter which will be applied to every URL. The default is _top.
UseHandCursor
A yes or no parameter that determines whether or not a typical 'web-style' hand cursor is used when the mouse moves over an entry on the menu. The default value is yes, so you need include this parameter only if you want to set it to 'no' and stick to the default pointer. This feature is applied only when an applet is running in a Java 1.1-compatible browser (Internet Explorer 4x or higher, Netscape Navigator 4.07 or higher). In other browsers, this parameter is ignored and the default pointer will be used.
Testmode
Another straightforward yes or no parameter. Most of the time you'll leave this set at its default, no. When setting up the applet, set this parameter to yes and then move the mouse over the applet. The optimum height for the applet will be shown in the browser's status bar. Note that it's always best to determine any applet's dimensions using Netscape Navigator since this browser requires far more space than any other for applet display.
Testmode does not attempt to suggest a width: depending on the modification-date, file size, length of full URL, and so on, the width of an entry could easily vary from a couple of hundred pixels to 500 or more. Suggestions for selecting an applet width are given in FileTrack & Java Security.
URL1, URL2, . . ., URLn
This is the fundamental set of parameters that tells FileTrack which files to display links for. FileTrack lets you display as many entries as you want to, but each must have a unique number suffix. These numbers must be consecutive: if FileTrack reaches number 15 and finds no 16, it will stop looking for more and 15 entries will be displayed. Any URL can be either relative or absolute. FileTrack will automatically determine the full absolute URL from a relative one if you opt to display it (see UseShortURL, and determines fill size and date by reading the properties of the file from the server.
Text1, Text2, . . ., Textn
The optional text to appear beside an entry on the menu. There's no requirement to include this parameter for an entry; you may simply choose to display the long or short URL (ShowURL) and feel that that's sufficient information. If you've set SplitLines to 'yes', the Text will appear on the first line by itself, with the word 'NEW!' appended if applicable (see NewFileDays). If you don't display a Text entry, this first line may be blank or may just contain the word 'NEW!' which could look a bit odd.
TextColor1, TextColor2, . . ., TextColorn
These optional parameters let you specify individual text colors for each URL's entry. This can be useful if you want to key-code particular types of file, perhaps to differentiate between downloadable applications and documentation. Any entry that doesn't specify its own TextColor this way will use the color set in the DefaultTextColor parameter.
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