This document explains the .htaccess file, and why we should all make friends with it.

You've made some fabulous scripts in VirtualFriend™, and would like to integrate them with your web page, right ?  You've saved them as .vfe files, and included them on your web page along with HTML links to them, but when you view the page and click on the links, VirtualFriend™ doesn't come up.  Instead, you see a screen full of garbage text characters, or a Save File dialog.

What's Wrong ?

Probably, it's your .htaccess file.

The .htaccess file is a standard part of Web Page design.  It contains lines that tell people's browsers how to view files of certain types.  For common web file types such as .jpg or .gif or .html, this isn't neccessary because those file types have defaults already.  But for .vfe files, the .htaccess needs to tell the browser how to view the file.

What to do.

Create the .htaccess file.
Run VirtualFriend™, and click the "create .htaccess" button in the authoring control panel.  This will create an appropriate .htaccess file on your local computer.  Name it simply ".htaccess".  Don't name it "MyScript.htaccess".  This .htaccess file will be the same for all your scripts; you only really need to create it once.  If you view the .htaccess file with notepad, it should contain the single line: "AddType application/x-VirtualFriend™ .vfe".

Include .htaccess with your scripts.
Any directory on your web site that contains a .vfe script file should also contain a copy of .htaccess.  See the links below for correctly and incorrectly set up example pages.
 

If you already have a .htaccess file,
simply add our line ("AddType application/x-VirtualFriend™ .vfe") to it.

Examples

Below are two nearly identical web pages.
The only difference is that one is in a directory which contains a ".htaccess" file, and one is in a directory which does not.

Visit the links below, clicking on the .vfe file in each of them to compare.

First, click HERE to see the page Without .htaccess.  Try the "hello.vfe" link.
It will probably ask you to save the .vfe file, or display the file as garbage text.

Then click HERE to see the page With .htaccess.  Try the "hello.vfe" link.
It should bring up VirtualFriend™.
 

We hope this helps you.
If you have any further questions, please send email to support@Haptek™.com.