Dreamweaver CS4: The Missing Manual

Chapter 24. Web Pages that Manipulate Database Records

Just displaying database information on a Web page is useful, but you may be more interested in using the Web to collect information from your site’s visitors (see Figure 24-1). Maybe something as simple as an online registration form will do the trick. Other times, you may have something more ambitious in mind—like a full-fledged e-commerce system that provides a way to collect product orders and credit card numbers.

Once you’ve got data in the database, clearly you need a way to update and delete that information. After all, prices change, products are discontinued, and you may suddenly want to remove any record of “Harvey the Wise Guy” from your site’s online guestbook. Thankfully, Dreamweaver makes changing information in a database simple and painless.

Note

You may feel more comfortable learning these concepts by doing them. If so, turn to the tutorial on Tutorial: Inserting and Updating Data before reading this next section.

Adding Data

As noted in Chapter 11, the primary method of collecting information over the Internet is the HTML form. Its basic elements—text boxes, radio buttons, pop-up menus, and so on—can collect a wide assortment of data. But to funnel this information into a database, you need to either write your own program or, more simply, use Dreamweaver’s built-in tools. With its Record Insertion Form wizard and Insert Record server behavior, Dreamweaver makes adding data a simple process.

Warning

You might not ...