Dreamweaver MX 2004: The Missing Manual

Chapter 23. 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. Maybe something as simple as an online registration form will do the trick. Other times, you may have something more ambitious in mind—a full-fledged ecommerce system, for example, which doesn’t pay the bills unless it provides a way to collect product orders and credit card numbers.

Once you’ve got data in the database, clearly you’ll 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.

Tip

You may feel more comfortable learning these concepts by doing them. If so, turn to the tutorial in Section 23.5 before reading this next section.

Adding Data

As noted in Chapter 10, 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 put this information into a database, you need to either write your own program or simply use Dreamweaver’s built-in tools. With its Record Insertion Form wizard and Insert Record server behavior, Dreamweaver makes this a simple process.

Warning

You might not want just anyone ...