Welcome to Dreamweaver level III
(introduction to working with programming and databases)
ftp connection info | main points | code snippets
Todays Outline:
- How the "database driven site" works (discussion)
- variables and how they work and live their life in a web site environment
- what are variables (name value pairs: name=bob, age=34, color=red)
- where do they live?
- the two methods of moving variables: GET vs POST
- a variables life span?
- Forms (are just variables entered by the user)
- how forms work overview (puking out name value pairs)
- Connect to the live testing server
- setup our work flow
- create our work folders on the server using our name (avoid deleting each others work)
-------- 15 minute break --------------
- building the feedback web site form (what do we need to ask the user)
- collecting the user input (and never trusting that user! -- the majority of all web site attacks! --)
--------------------------------------- 12:00 noon break for lunch --------------------------------------------
- Refining the feedback form
- Linking a CSS style sheet to make it more usable (look better)
- tab order for usability
- server side error checking, insert this code at top
- A closer look our Php mail script
- adjusting the script to fit our needs
- testing the feedback form and squashing bugs
-------- 15 minute break --------------
- setting up a database connection in Dreamweaver (the first step for a database driven site)
- usually I.T. takes care of this, but you can as well (must happen before anything else)
- Create a site definition for the database driven site (page 25 in book)
- working with record sets in D.W. (what are record sets)
- Display records (rows) in a database table
- Paging through your record sets
- server side includes ( very similar to library items )
- create a search and results page
- conclusion: more info if you want to take to leap;
- phpMySql (open source database, www.php.net )
- lynda.com (TONS of database knowledge and videos)