[FX.php List] Best way to disable FX-based pages, with a nice message?

[Troy Meyers]

Virtually every page in our site is dependent on FX.php and FileMaker. I guess I'm late in learning the best way to handle the situation where (for whatever reason, including on purpose) the WPE is off or not working. I suppose it's good that FileMaker Server is almost always "up" for us.

I'm doing a bunch of FileMaker merging work (combining individual database files into one) and I'm at the point were this one particular merge would best be done without allowing anyone web access during the process of "rewiring" what were external file references.

Is there an easy and clean way, just by adding a little code to the top of each PHP page, to detect when the WPE is turned off, and put up a friendly message of explanation?

I _know_ this has been discussed, but I'll be darned if I can think of the right keywords to find it in the archives.

Suggestion, please?

-Troy