Database 101, and FP training

[Don Dean]

OK everyone, try not to get too technical on me.
I'd like to start learning about databases and how they work in FP and know
next to nothing about the subject. A few questions.

1) Does the host server determine which databases you can use on your web
site?
2) Are there certain databases that work better with FP2003, than others, if
so which ones are they and which one is the easiest to learn and work with?
3) I don't see any database training tutorials on the FP web site. Does
anyone know of some that are good for beginners.

Kevin Spencer - if you read this post, you mentioned in an answer to my post
on "making money with FP" that you had set up a web site with a tutorial on
web databases. Is that site and tutorial still accessible?

 

[Alec]

Don

I have the very same question.

Am starting a 'fun' project to list all the adventure sports facilities
in my county. Basically I want the ability for users to type in a town,
or maybe a sport and then retrieve a list of results, ie page 1 of 3
with 10 results etc etc.

Have just started looking at MySQL and phpmyadmin in the simplest of
forms. However I can find very few good EASY tutorials that show how I
can create search criteria and basically interact with the database
using FrontPage.

IMPORTANT I am no expert at this stuff. So it really needs to be step
by step.

Can anyone help???

Alec

 

[mstumpo]

You can use FP to create database-driven sites that allow for posts to
database, queries from the database and editing of database records. Unless
you are doing e-commerce sites, an Access database will work fine.

Basic steps to get started are:

Create a database using Access and "import" it into your FP web using the
Import menu.

Create one or more forms connecting to the database.

Use the DIW (Database Interface wizard) to create your edit pages. (TIP,
this is a great way to see how FP works with the database)

Use the DRW (database results wizard) to display database information on
your sites.

You should probably pick up a beginner book on SQL as it will show you
various ways to get information from your database using SQL commands. TIP:
Running the DRW through its steps and then returning to it via the dialog
boxes, you can select "custom" to see the SQL code that FP generates.

One more thing. Get a web editor like Aranea so you can alter the code
manually. FP can sometimes be difficult to work with becuase FP will want to
alter the BOT code which updates the ASP code. You may want to do this to
tweak the code vs. using the DRW or DIW wizards.

HTH

 

[Thomas A. Rowe]

See inline below

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OK everyone, try not to get too technical on me.
I'd like to start learning about databases and how they work in FP and know
next to nothing about the subject. A few questions.

1) Does the host server determine which databases you can use on your web
site?
Yes


2) Are there certain databases that work better with FP2003, than others, if
so which ones are they and which one is the easiest to learn and work with?

MS Access (FP can create the database for you), MS SQL Server.
FP doesn't work directly with Unix/Linux database or PHP, etc.

3) I don't see any database training tutorials on the FP web site. Does
anyone know of some that are good for beginners.

Basically you create a form, then select sent to database, and let FP create the database and
connection. This will create a Access database and ASP page (or ASP.net) then you must publish to a
Windows IIS web server that has the FP extensions via http.

 

[John]

It's amaziing that this subject should be posted by two different
users on the forum this morning. I had almost exactly the same thought
but unfortunately my NNTP server was acting up and I couldn't post.

Yes

Could you give us a little more info on this ? Here's where
I'm thinking of going.

My neighbor gave me a computer over the weekend. tt's an older
Dell 4100 series with a PIII/733 processor and 384MB PC100 RAM. Of
course it had the usual viruses, spyware and so forth. She just didn't
want to deal with it. Anyway, I'm thinking about setting it up with a
couple 200GB SATA drives as a server. This way the family could use it
for a common data storage/access point and as a nexus for backing up
our systems.

So the next little idea I got was setting up an intranet site
with all of the files stored in a database and .... and ....

And now I'm over my head !

So which OS would be a good choice for a small intranet and a
n00b who is going to have to read every page of a good book on this
type of thing ? Of course I'm already using Win2KPro and XP Pro but I
seem to remember something called Small Business Server. I'm not even
concerned about the hardware as much as I am in getting something like
this running. Combined with the gigbit LAN I've already setup, should
be pretty cool.

MS Access (FP can create the database for you), MS SQL Server.
FP doesn't work directly with Unix/Linux database or PHP, etc.

Are there any significant differences between the two that the
layperson needs to know ? Of course I already have Access 2003 but I
haven't worked on it.

Basically you create a form, then select sent to database, and let FP create the database and
connection. This will create a Access database and ASP page (or ASP.net) then you must publish to a
Windows IIS web server that has the FP extensions via http.

This is going to be interesting if I get it off the ground.

Thanks.

John

John - www.750.net

 

[Kathleen Anderson [MVP - FrontPage]]

This: news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.frontpage.client will let
you read and post directly to the Microsoft NNTP server.

--

~ Kathleen Anderson
Microsoft MVP - FrontPage
Spider Web Woman Designs
web: http://www.spiderwebwoman.com/resources/