QUID PRO QUO
This describes how to bring up the Macintosh-based HTTP server called Quid Pro Quo.
Quid Pro Quo may not be the most popular Macintosh-based HTTP available, but it has just about every feature of the leader and the price certainly is right. Free. Chris Hawk, the developer, has certainly created a fine piece of softare. Furthermore, after describing how to bring up this server on our Macintosh, you will wonder at the complexity of Apache.
Begin my acquiring the application from its download page at www.socialeng.com. Be sure to download Quid Pro Quo 2.x since it is the free version. The other more feature rich versions are available for free 30-day trials and require a serial number to activate.
If your WWW browser is configured correctly, then the downloaded file should uncompress and result in a self-extracting archive. Launch the self-extracting archive and tell it to save the compressed file any place on your hard disk.
Launch Quid Pro Quo and you will be asked a few configuration questions. For the most part you can accept the defaults. The only thing you should modify is the setting for the root directory. Select the Examples directory that came with the distribution. After running through the configuration section Quid Pro Quo will complete its startup functions and you can open up a connection to yourself through your WWW browser.
This simplicity does not preclude configuration options. The configuration options are available by selecting Server Settings... from the Control menu. After you become experienced, you will discover that the default settings are just fine. The most useful piece of information is found in the Default Files section. This is also where you define the name of the file to return when clients select directories. The default is default.html. You might want to change this to index.html. You might also want to look in the Error Files section. Here you will learn what informational HTML files are returned to clients when errors occurs (file not found, permission denied, etc).