Overview

Creating CSP pages

Crystal Server Pages (CSP), which are similar to Active Server Pages (ASP), are used to provide dynamic response to a user browsing the World Wide Web. Put very simply, they are pages that contain a mixture of HTML code and scripting code such as VBScript or JavaScript (also known as JScript or ECMA Script).

CSP pages are simple text files with a .csp extension, and they can be developed with a text editor or an application such as Microsoft FrontPage or Microsoft® Visual InterDev™.

Processing CSP pages

The basic process is as follows: when a user's browser requests a CSP file from a web server, the web server passes this request to the Web Component Server (WCS). The WCS in turn parses the page and evaluates any scripting code that exists. HTML code, which does not need any evaluation, is left until the script is processed. The object of the script is to perform some function and return HTML code as a result. Once all script has been executed and the resultant HTML concatenated with the existing HTML, the whole page is returned to the web server, which in turn serves it to the web browser, which displays it for the user.

Take for example, a CSP file that contains the following mixture of scripting code and HTML.

Example

CSP page
1 - HTML
Script A
2 - HTML
Script B
3 - HTML

In this example, the client receives 1, the result of Script A, followed by 2, the result of Script B, and then 3—all as one page containing only HTML.

Viewing CSP pages

To view a CSP file, open your web browser and enter the virtual path where the CSP is located and the name of the file. The script will be processed and the results diplayed in your browser window. Note that the user never sees any part of the CSP script. The script is stored on and evaluated by the WCS, and only plain HTML is sent back to the user. This means that browsers never have to have any knowledge of scripts, and no plugins have to be installed on the browser. Additionally, custom DLLs can be stored on the server machine and accessed by scripts through a COM interface.