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September 19, 2002

Dr. Website Archives

Dr. Website® Archives 2002

    Question:
    Dear Dr. Website: I have developed a website and have heard from a few people that have visited it that most of it does not show up clearly using Netscape.

    Is there a html code that I can add to the website that would make it compatible to IE and Netscape Users?
    Thank You

    Answer:
    If it were only that easy!! The different ways that MSIE and Netscape handle HTML and the problems it has caused has filled many discussion forums and could fill many books. It is these browser variances that keep web developers up at night.

    Essentially, you need to check your web site out using the lastest versions of the major web browsers (MSIE, Netscape, AOL, Mozilla, Opera) as well as some older versions of those same browsers, and you have to work to make your site accessable and viewable by all those browsers. Often the issue comes down to small errors in table code, out of order tags (i.e. a closing tag out of order), or some other small error.

    Best way to find the error is to start taking things out of the page until you locate the problem (i.e . take the images out, problem still happens, take the bottom table out, problem still happens, take the left navigation out, no problem, bingo, you just found the problem).
    Thanks

    --Dr.Website

    Question:
    Dear Dr. Website:
    Users of our intranet have to update text and curently have access to html files on the server via windows explorer. We would prefer they updated them directly in the browser. The data is in tables foramt, but they are not database records. Can you help please.

    Answer:
    Netscape Communicator has a built-in HTML editor, Composer, that will allow them to edit the web page "practically" in the browser, but I suspect that is not what you're after. What I believe you're after is the ability to let them edit portions of the web page from within a web page, such as using a form.

    Although there are a number of ways you could accomplish that task, the majority of them will still require you to use a database to contain the data.

    You could use a scripting language such as VBScript, along with an MS SQL database (or MS Access if you're not expecting too much traffic), and ASP or PHP to allow your users to access the data, or you could buy a pre-built solution such as ActiveSquare 4, which the company says is "an ActiveX Control that enables Web application developers to offer rich document creation and uploading abilities to their site users, right in the browser."

    You can find out more about ActiveSquare here:
    http://www.namo.com/products/activesquare/
    Thanks,

    --Dr.Website Question:
    Dear Dr. Website:
    Is there any way to retrieve information from a MS Access database using Javascript or VBscript?

    Thank you!

    Answer:
    If you can use ASP (Active Server Pages) then you can use either scripting language to do the job. Here's how you'd open an MS Access database using VBScript without using an ODBC connection (i.e. just pointing to the database):

    strDSN = "DRIVER={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)}; "
    strDSN = strDSN & "DBQ=" & Server.MapPath("/data/yourdb.mdb")
    set cn =Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")
    set rsSelect = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Recordset")
    cn.Open strDSN

    and here it is using an ODBC (DSN) connection:

    set myConn = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")
    set RS = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.RecordSet")
    myConn.Open "DSN=yourDB"

    Now the specific how's and why's would take an entire article to cover, so I'll point you to our new site, DatabaseJournal.com for the details:

    http://www.databasejournal.com/features/msaccess/article.php/1428341


    Thanks

    --Dr.Website Question:
    Dear Dr. Website:
    I have been trying to get a submit button on a form to send the form results to an e-mail account. I found your web site and found the following suggestion: <FORM METHOD=POST ACTION="mailto:youremail@home.com"
    ENCTYPE="text/plain">
    <INPUT TYPE="TEXT" VALUE=""> <INPUT
    TYPE=SUBMIT> </FORM>

    I have tried using this changing the mailto address to my account. However, no information is being sent.
    When I hit the submit button, Write Mail pops up from my AOL software with only the Send To section filled in. The browser I am using is Internet Explorer 5.0. Do you have any ideas on how I can get this to work?

    Your help would be greatly appreciated.

    Thank you!

    Answer:
    Unless you've seen other sites where mailto forms work fine, I would suspect that the culprit is the AOL email client. Mailto forms work fine using Eudora or Outlook, however often Outlook or Outlook Express will send the contents of the form as an attachment instead of directly within the email itself. Other email clients will also act differently, although almost all email clients will open a pop-up message telling the user that the web page is attempting to send an email, and do they wish to allow it.
    Thanks

    --Dr.Website ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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