Dreamweaver MX: 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 about 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 e-commerce 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, there’d better be 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.

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 Dreamweaver’s built-in tools. With its Record Insertion Form and Insert Record server behavior, Dreamweaver makes this a simple process.

Warning

You might not want just anyone adding, editing, or deleting database information. To control access to these types of pages—or any page, for that matter—use Dreamweaver’s User Authentication server behaviors, as discussed on page 727. ...