Dreamweaver CS5: The Missing Manual

Spry Data Sets

Dreamweaver includes a way to display data more dynamically than a plain-vanilla HTML table. Spry data sets provide several ways to present data from a variety of sources, including basic HTML tables or XML files. With a Spry data set, for example, you can create an interactive table that visitors can sort just by clicking the top of a table column (Figure 13-12).

Say a page has a table that lists all the employees in a company. The table includes each employee’s name, the region of the country in which he or she works, the phone number, and other important data. Sometimes you probably want to see the list of employees alphabetized by last name; other times you want to sort the list by the regions in which they work (northeast, southeast, and so on). Normally, you’d have to create two web pages: one with a table of employees listed by last name, and another with employees listed by region.

With a Spry data set, you need only one page and one table, no matter how many columns you have. That’s because a Spry table is interactive, just like a regular old Excel spreadsheet. Want to see employees organized by last name? Click the “Name” column. To group employees by region, just click the “Region” column. A Spry table is interactive, instantaneous, and doesn’t require loading another web page.

In addition, Spry data sets let you display detailed data on a single item in the table. Suppose you have a simple table that just lists employees’ names and the regions in which they ...