FrontPage 2003 (The Missing Manual)

Chapter 17. Interacting with a Database

In the last chapter, you learned how to display portions of a database on a Web page. But what if you want to let your site viewers tap directly into your data, so that they can manipulate what they're looking at, rather than just passively view it? For example, say you've posted employee profiles for everyone in your office, but you don't have anyone 's home address. Sure, you could walk around with a pen and paper jotting down names and addresses. But wouldn't it be a lot easier if everyone could just enter their own information right into the database? And wouldn't it be great if you could let people edit their addresses directly through their browser window, rather than having to teach them how to use the database software (not to mention installing the program on all their computers)?

FrontPage gives you this ability through its Database Interface Wizard. This wizard works kind of like the Database Results Wizard that you read about in the preceding chapter, but instead of just displaying "read-only" data to your visitors , you can let them interact with itadding, editing, and deleting records on their own, via the Web.

This chapter teaches you how to create what is essentially a Web-based application that lets visitors work directly with a database. After you learn how to create this tool, you'll see exactly how it works within a browser.

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Tip: If you want to let visitors edit or delete records, read on. However, if all you want to do is collect the info that visitors enter in a form and store the results in a database (essentially creating new records), then a simpler solution would be to create a Web form and configure it to send results to a database. (See Chapter 15 to learn how to create the form and then turn to Section 16.2.4 to see how to send results to a database.)

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