Dreamweaver CS5.5: The Missing Manual

Chapter 26. Web Pages that Manipulate Database Records

Displaying database information on a web page is useful, but you may be more interested in the opposite kind of communication—collecting information from your site’s visitors (see Figure 26-1). Maybe you want them to do something as simple as register with your site. Other times, you may have something more ambitious in mind—like accepting and processing product orders using a full-fledged e-commerce system.

Once you have data in a database, you need a way to maintain it—to update and delete information. After all, you’ll change prices, discontinue products, and remove any record of “Harvey the Wise Guy” from your site’s online guestbook at some point. Thankfully, Dreamweaver makes changing this information simple and painless.

Note

You may feel more comfortable learning these concepts by doing them. If so, turn to the tutorial on Deleting Records before you read the next section.

Adding Data

As noted in Chapter 13, the primary way you collect information over the Internet is through an HTML form. Its basic elements—text boxes, radio buttons, pop-up menus, and so on—give you all kinds of ways to collect a wide assortment of data. But to record this information, you either need to write your own program or, more simply, use Dreamweaver’s built-in tools to funnel it into a database. Dreamweaver’s Record Insertion Form Wizard and Insert Record server behavior make adding data a simple process.

Figure 26-1. Whether you want to accept ...