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[James Powell]

We NFS export a subdirectory of a web documents directory from a web 
server running UNIX.  Several users running Windows 3.1 and PC/TCP
import this directory and it appears as a new drive letter under
File Manager.  These users edit and replace files using whatever
PC software they prefer (in this case Word and WordPerfect are
used).  This arrangement works quite well.  There are some things
to keep in mind:

1. Filenames will have to be 8.3 so people can find their
files - PC/TCP uses an algorithm to shorten filenames but we
found users simply could not figure out which file was which after
the algorithm mangled the name.  One solution here is to upgrade
to Windows 95 or Windows NT.

2. Modify the mime.types entry for html to look something like this:
text/html 	html htm
so htm files will be sent with the correct Content-type header

3. Don't forget to export files to ascii text if you use a word
processor to edit the HTML files!

We also have a similar setup with a Macintosh running InterCon's
NFS Share.  While filename length is not a problem, you can end up
with filenames with spaces or other characters.  There've been
instances when a person on a mac named a file in such a way that a
UNIX user could not edit or rename the file.  Also the end of line
character for Macs is completely different than the PC (which uses 2
characters) or UNIX.  So the file's contents appear to be on one
line.  When this happens, DOS and UNIX users often cannot edit these 
files.  Luckily, some editors support a "Save as UNIX" option!

I've found that users prefer this arrangement to using FTP to
retrieve and replace files.

Hope this helps...

James Powell - Programmer/Analyst, University Libraries, VPI&SU
	       jpowell at scholar.lib.vt.edu or jpowell at vt.edu
	       Owner of VPIEJ-L, a discussion list for Electronic  
Journals
Archives: http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/   gopher://scholar.lib.vt.edu/
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