A good way to begin when creating your first Web Service is to follow the Getting Started Guide on creating a Web service. This step by step guide will help you create your first Web Service. It is also a good way to test that you have set up and configured IIS and ASP.NET correctly to host and run Web Services.

 

The first step in creating your web service is to give it a Name.

 

 

N.B - See the section on using the Apache Web Server if you are not planning to use IIS.

 

To view the .Net Namespace and Web Service URL parameters click on the Advanced button.

 

You can set the IIS Application Pool for the Web Service on versions of Windows and IIS that support it. For instance, Windows XP doesn’t. If you are using a version of Windows or IIS that doesn't support Application Pools, a message box as shown below will appear. Just click OK to enter the .NET namespace or URL.

 

 

 

The later versions of DWS 2010 have additional parameters included for:

 

Database Timeout - This option allows the Database Timeout to be changed from the default of 30 seconds , enter a value here (in seconds) to change the length of time the Web Service will attempt

to connect to the database.

 

Impersonate Windows for Web Methods - for more information click here.

 

Treat @ in queries as parameter prefix - see information on the latest release for more information.

 

 

 

Name

You can call the web service anything you like but it must be a valid name, do not insert spaces or include non-standard characters such as @ # £ in the name. This name will be used when your web service is generated.The name entered will be used to make up the URL to your Web service, e.g http://localhost/myWSname/myWSName.asmx  for a Web Service with the name equal to myWSname.This name is also used to name the Web service object which has the extension .asmx.

Destination Folder

This is the destination folder for the Source files and where the Web service object is generated.

 

N.B  You must ensure that the folder you choose will allow the user ASPNET access rights.It is recommended you enter a new folder here specifically for your DWS projects.

 

PLEASE NOTE:  When choosing a destination folder it is good practise to create a folder e.g C:\DWS for your Web Service and then a Sub Folder for the Web Service name. e.g C:\DWS\mywebservicename.

 

Previous versions created a sub folder in the destination directory for you, this no longer happens. This means that if you create another Web service in C:\DWS and regenerate and then answer yes to delete contents of the folder C:\DWS , that is exactly what will happen. ALL contents including other Web Services created in that folder will also be deleted.  

 

NET Namespace

If you're familiar with .NET, Visual Studio and C# then you will know what a namespace is, but if you're new to this environment then briefly a namespace is a named section of a Visual studio project.

Web Service Namespace URL

This is the Web Service namespace URL that will be defined within the .NET project and is not the URL where the Web Service will be created or published.

 

Description

Enter a more detailed description here , this will be visible when the Web service is called.

 

Menu Bar

The menu bar situated at the top of the screen allows the following options.

 

 

Open Project   Click on this Icon to open a previously saved project.

 

Save Project   Use this option to save the currently open project.

 

New Project,Data Source or Query. Create a new Web service, Data Source connection or query.

 

Properties Click this Icon to display the Data Source connection or Query properties.

 

Delete Use this option when in Data Source Connections or Queries to delete a Data Source or Query.

 

 

Generate the Web Service. Finally use this option when you are ready to generate the Web Service.