ASP Pages and Databases

[chris124]

Hello

I'm a beginner to asp and databases and wish to learn how to create one for a website, I have at present setup an access database (although there isn't anything in it yet), hosted it on my windows server, and it's now active, what I need to do now is to create a form that will call specific data from it and display that information in an asp page.

I know not everyone likes DreamweaverMX 2004 for creating asp pages but for now until I get a hang of it I wish to use it, I am creating my pages using the ASP VBScript template from Dreamweaver, I have created a database connection within it (I believe it works).

I need a quick lesson on how to create the form, retrieve the specific data and publish it on an asp webpage, I have purposely left the database empty for this lesson, another reason for leaving this database empty is because I have access to a ASP.Net Enterprice Manager through the ISP, there are many fields on this that I don't understand so if anyone knows how to fully use this it would be appreciated.

Thanks
Chris124

[phpnovice]

Does this mean you will be using ASP.NET in DreamWeaver? Also, since you mention using DreamWeaver as your development tool, it is a pretty safe assumption that you'll need someone familiar with DreamWeaver features in order to guide you through this process. Thus, it is unlikely you'll be able to get any help in this forum. About the only thing you can get in this forum is native ASP assistance.

[chris124]

I'm using ASP.VBScript and yes I use Dreamweaver but any help would be appreciated.

[phpnovice]

Caveat Emptor: OK, keep in mind that I don't know anything about ASP.NET and that everything I post will be for Classic ASP/VBScript (or ASP/JScript, if desired). ;)

To start... Here's three articles from a good site for a wealth of articles on ASP and ADO (for database access). Then, feel free to ask specific questions.

"Classic ASP" and "Classic ADO" (http://www.google.com/search?q=site:4guysfromrolla.com+"Classic%20ASP"%20and%20"Classic%20ADO")

[CardboardHammer]

If you'll be using .NET, you should get this moved to the .NET forum. PeOfEo, the moderator for that forum, actually uses Dreamweaver with .NET, so you'd likely have better luck there.

[Bullschmidt]

I'm a beginner to asp and databases and wish to learn how to create one for a website...


This applies to classic ASP which is simpler than ASP.NET.

Perhaps this may hopefully give you some ideas:

Web Database Concept
http://www.bullschmidt.com/concept.asp

This is something I put together about ASP that hopefully might help somehow.

You and others can have access to a database hosted on the Web from any location that has a browser with an Internet connection.

The Web database concept makes sense if you and your people want to do work in various locations in or outside the office and still be "plugged" in.

For example you could have employees enter timesheets or have sales reps log their contacts. Or perhaps you'd like customers to be able to check the status of their orders online without having to call the company.

If you want a Web database, typically what would happen is that a database such as Access or MySQL (basically just consisting of tables) would be put on the Web.

Then "dynamic" Web pages (such as classic ASP pages which include VBScript, HTML, and/or JavaScript) would be created acting like the old desktop database's queries, forms, and reports to access the database - all hosted on a Web Server.

Dynamic Web pages are similar in many ways to regular HTML pages. But they are "live" because the user can read from and write to information in the database. An example where you can login and add, edit, or view fictional customers and invoices is at http://www.bullschmidt.com/login.asp

Not all Web hosts will handle dynamic Web pages but many do. The Web hosts that can handle ASP pages usually have a Windows 2000 or Windows 2003 operating system running an IIS Web server.

Here are a few good ASP sites:
o ASP101 Samples - http://www.asp101.com/samples
o W3Schools ASP Tutorial - http://www.w3schools.com/asp
o Microsoft VBScript Language Reference - http://msdn.microsoft.com/scripting/default.htm?/scripting/VBScript/doc/vbscripttoc.htm

And the following newsgroup is good:
microsoft.public.inetserver.asp.general

Or for a "quick and dirty" generic ASP open source solution to putting databases on the Web (often works well for the admin area of a Web site which doesn't need to look too unique) that just requires setting up a configuration page for each table or query and uploading the database to the Web as long as there is an autonumber field in each table (and you'll probably also separately want to create login capabilities), perhaps try something like this:
GenericDB by Eli Robillard
http://www.genericdb.com and then click on the Tips link to see an example