The design and deployment of the Documentation Review Tool provides a brief snapshot of the way that the Windows DNA model has increasingly emphasized business-services tier development. The review tool's business tier once consisted only of Internet Information Server (IIS) version 4.0 and Active Server Pages (ASP) version 2.0 pages. It has evolved to take greater advantage of the benefits of the Microsoft® Transaction Server (MTS) version 2.0 environment.
The following diagram illustrates the Documentation Review Tool from the administrator and user perspectives.
The Documentation Review Tool is deployed on Microsoft's corporate intranet. Users view it in Internet Explorer. To prepare a document for review, an administrator runs JavaScript code in Windows Scripting Host (WSH). This code searches for the topic headers on HTML pages and attaches an IFrame containing the Topic Review form to each page in the documentation set.
The administrator uses the ASP page depicted in the following graphic to administer the review.
Each link on the page calls up another ASP page. Each ASP page maps to a method call on the Review component; fields in forms on each ASP page that the administrator updates are posted to the component. These methods allow the administrator to view results, update the document under review with new topics, import comments from a previous review to a current review, assign sections to an author, and retire a particular review altogether.
User functions are implemented by using ActiveX® Data Objects (ADO) calls into SQL Server tables. For example, when a user submits a review for the first time, two tables are created in the database: one to store the ratings the reviewer gives the topics, and another to store the comments themselves. If the reviewer wants a comment sent directly to the topic's author, there is a check box available that, if selected, causes the application to call Collaboration Data Objects for Windows NT Server to send SMTP mail. Clicking View Comments sends users to a form from which they can view comments linked to the topic. Another button then leads to another form that enables users to filter comments by reviewer, author, date, and document section.
The following graphic shows the Topic Review form attached to each topic in an online documentation set.
The Documentation Review Tool uses NTLM Security for Windows NT clients and Basic Authentication for Windows 95 or Windows 98 clients to restrict access to authenticated users. Because of this, users' names are attached to the comments they submit. Users with valid Windows NT user accounts proceed to the opening page of the document they wish to review; users who either cannot be authenticated or whose browser does not support NTLM Security receive appropriate notification. A dialog box appears requesting user name and password. If the browser cannot authenticate the user, a custom error page appears to explain that the review tool requires authentication.