Interestingly many IntraWeb users don’t know that there is a Compression option in the ServerController:

just set ServerController.Compression.Enabled = true and IntraWeb will compress all pages sent to the web browser. If the Web browser doesn’t support compression, then IntraWeb will of course detect that and send uncompressed.

The only requirement is to put a zlib.dll into the application’s directory. A working version can be downloaded here. No changes/settings on the client side are necessary.

There is one trade-off though which you should keep in mind: compression takes CPU cycles. Thats no problem for the client, but if your server machine is already close to its limit, then compression might not be a so good idea ..

Running IntraWeb applications right off your desktop is simple and fast. Just compile and run, and you have a working HTTP server. For production we recommend installing as service or as ISAPI application though.

Running a Web server on a Windows desktop – where you need to be logged in – is not what you want typically.

However, for product demonstrations, long testing sessions etc. it might make sense to use an IntraWeb Standlone application that way. You could even run an IntraWeb application right off a CD. For that purpose
we offer a way to customize the more or less ugly default Standalone form. This can be done by just dropping a TIWStandaloneServer component onto a standard Windows VCL form. For more details see the
CustomStandAlone demo, which can be found in the “demos” folder where you installed IntraWeb.

We just got a customer inquiry, where a customized IntraWeb standalone application raises an Integer overflow after “lots of traffic”. The customer is implementing an online game with many graphics transfered.

The source of that problem is a LogBytes rountine which counts the transfered data using an Integer variable. In other words, after 2GB of data transfered the application will show an error.

Note: This error only applies to Desktop Standalone Applications.
ISAPI and Service type Standalone applications are not affected!

The next minor IntraWeb release (9.0.40) correctly handles that situation, and the next major release (9.1 or 10.0) will upgrade the variable in question to In64.

If you are using IntraWeb desktop applications in the described way, then add the following to your custom Standalone form:

private
  FTotalBytes := Int64;
  ...

procedure TFormCustom.LogBytes(const ABytes: Integer);
begin
FTotalBytes := FTotalBytes + ABytes;
//If you want to display the bytes transfered, then call your update routine here
//Or more resource friendly add a TTimer that updates your Byte counter
end;

procedure TFormCustom.FormCreate(Sender: TObject);
begin
memoLog.Lines.Add('Server started');
memoLog.Lines.Add('Listening on port: ' + IntToStr(GServerController.Port));
memoLog.Lines.Add('');
GLogBytesProcedure := LogBytes;
end;