Web Enabled Access DB (Access 2000)

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OK, where do I start.

Does anyone have any ideas as far as books and resources. I probably need to start learning a programming language like VB. I have been using Access for over 8 years and have managed to get by without coding. But now I am challenged with make Web enabled databases.

FIRST PROBLEM:
I have a traditional Access form that has a drop-down box for a Name. When that name is selected, it automatically fills the next three lines, ID, UnitNum, UnitName. This is easy in access.
Me!Ext = Me![Combo42].Column(1)
Me!PinNum = Me![Combo42].Column(2)
Me!UnitNum = Me![Combo42].Column(3)
Me!UnitNam = Me![Combo42].Column(4)

But How do I do it in Data Access Pages? I started buy using the Wizard to create a form. Then I looked at Drop-down boxes, but it only does one field at a time.

I know I have a learning curve, so any suggestions to which books to read or what resources to use will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

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This may not directly answer your question, but it will hopefully give you some food for thought…

I have never used Data Access Pages because I write my own code in ASP.

What you’re trying to do is going to require some client-side scripting (like JavaScript or VBScirpt). In order to automatically populate controls (especially without making another trip to the server) you’ll have to store all possible choices in the HTML to start with, then have a JavaScript function select the desired item based on your other criteria.

Basically, I’m saying that I don’t think this is going to be possible without some coding. (Although, it’s possible that there are some features of DAPs that I’ve missed that will make it work without code.)

If you’re interested, there are several good threads in the Web Design forum that discuss some great books for ASP and other scripting.

Hope this helps!

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Data Access Pages are html files that are designed to be web windows into Access or SQL Server databases. That means that they have all the restrictions of any other html page, and that includes not being able to use Access controls. If you want to do anything fancy with a DAP, start learning VBScript and switch to ASP instead.

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I used the following books when setting up a web based Access database.

Beginning ASP Databases by John Kauffman (ISBN: 1-861002-72-6)

Teach Yourself Active Server Pages 3.0 in 21 Days by Scott Mitchell and James Atkinson (ISBN: 0-672-31863-6)

FrontPage 2000 Developer’s Guide by Mike Jennett (ISBN: 0-07-211972-1)

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The easiest place to start is with a tool that will do most of the work for you, so i recommend MSs FrontPage web page producer; a text that ‘covers’ the automatic database features of FP (“Inside Out” is okay); and start hanging in the FP board here. While you’re producing pages with FP, you can begin learning VBScript, ASP, HTML, SQL, and ADO. Where to start depends on your background, and note that ASP and ADO are “being replaced” with ASP.NET and ADO.NET respectively. Note that with web work, Access Forms and Reports “go away”; i have had less success with DAPs than with FP produced pages.

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(Edited by charlotte on 02-Dec-02 18:43. to activate link)

I have a tutorial for VBA, and an Intro to ASP tutorial on my site. http://www.wolfwares.com[/url%5D (I must say the VBA is far more complete then the ASP though, ASP is pretty simple once you have a good foot hold in VB/VBA, since it is VB Script, with 5 extra objects.)

Drew

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I spoke in detail to a friend of mine who has his own software company and he suggested Visual C#. We spoke in length and he said that based on the fact that I did not have any prior programming language, this would give me more flexibility in the long run. I’ll try this out as well as look into MS Frontpage. Thanks all

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Hmmm, not to contradict your friend, but if you have Access Experience, just no programming experience, wouldn’t it be easier to learn a bit of programming with VBA, instead of a language that is foriegn to Access?

I use Access and VB interchangably, but when I first saw the VB Environment, it took a little bit to get my feet planted. What helped immensely was my VB skills inherent in learning VBA in Access. I already understood the flow and some of the tricks. Going into VB was much easier that way.

I haven’t seen C# yet, so I can’t comment on it’s learning curve, but I would be willing to be a beer that it’s interface is going to be quite a bit different from Access.

Drew (Good luck….)

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As I understand it, C# is a combination of C++ and Java. It’s part of the new .NET framework. C# can be written with any interface (including our all-time favorite, Notepad), but Microsoft’s Visual Studio .NET (v 7) is the new environment that supports it and several other languages.

If you’re still planning to work with Access and other Office applications, I would recommend learning VBA because you can easily apply the same techniques to VBScript using ASP on the web. Your friend probably has some computer science background which usually includes a lot of work with Java. He or she would natually find C# easy to pick up, but for a beginner you’re probably better off spending your time on VBA and VBScript.

Although I understand that FrontPage has some very useful features, I would recommend against trying to develop any web-based applications with it. One of my major frustrations with FP is the way it likes to hijack your code.

If you’re planning to develop an ASP application (or any ASP page, for that matter), a much better environment is already provided with your Office 2000 or XP install: Microsoft’s Script Editor. This can typically be found in the following location:

Office 2000: C:Program FilesMicrosoft Visual StudioCommonIDEIDE98MSE.EXE
Office XP: C:Program FilesMicrosoft OfficeOffice10MSE7.EXE

(Note: Even though the path says Visual Studio, it still comes with Office. Also note that this feature must be included in your Office installation.)

The Script editor is basically a light version of Visual Interdev, the Internet Development tool from Visual Studio 6.0. It has lots of goodies, including helpfiles and object model references for ASP/ADO development.

Hope this helps

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Thanks againn for the information. I was looking at VB and ASP as well. Looks like I’ll be doing alot of reading and trying thinks out. What might also help is that I have VB. Microsoft C# is $100.00. So I’ll try the VB first before looking at a totally new system. That being said. Does anyone have any good books to read for VB. I got the ‘C# in 24 hrs’ from SAMS because Amazon .com readers found it very good. I’ll go back there to see what is a good VB book, but I’d like to get your opinions.

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I’m curiuos – what’s your goal here? Are you trying to work toward Web-based database programming? Or are you just aiming for general Windows database application development?

If Web-based applications are your goal, let me save you a lot of time and trouble… I’ve been down that road before and I found ASP was by far the quickest and easiest way to write web-based applications in a Microsoft environment (outside of .NET, that is).

C# can be used in a lot of different environments (as with all of the .NET-enabled languages), but it’s not the tool-of-choice of most web developers. VB is similar – it can be used in a lot of situations and environment, but you don’t really want to develop web-based applications using the VB environment.

ASP is your best choice here – unless you are planning to go straight to ASP.NET, in which case you can use C#.NET if you feel comfortable with it. As I said before, you don’t need any special software to write web-based applications – you can even use NOTEPAD if you choose. It’s all text-based and doesn’t require any compiling.

Hope this helps

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I work with Access databases. That is first and foremost. Therefore I will take your advice to heart. I want to be able to Web-enable my Access Databases to offer my clients the flexibility of browser based databases without having to have larger servers in the back end like SQL. I will eventually work towards that for larger projects, but for smaller databases, its all about the front end. Thanks for the info. Other than that, I would like to also pick up some programming for advanced web design. I have been playing around with Dreamweaver and Flash, but its very basic stuff. I see myself writing code for some advanced designs, but I want to do the Database designs first. ASP looks like the way to go to ghet me off the ground.

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Great – that sounds like you’re on the right track. Dreamweaver is a great environment for writing ASP. It offers the best of both worlds: coding help, as well as options for the non-coder.

Let me just offer a few tips to help you along your way with web-database work:
1) Learn ADO (Active Data Objects). It will become your best friend in this type of situation.
2) To learn more about ASP and ADO, check out a site that really helped me get started: W3 Schools (free).
3) Don’t be scared of using SQL Server for backends. For high-traffic sites, Access will show its limits very quickly. The good news is that you can use the same objects to connect to SQL that you use for Access (ADO).

Hope this helps

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Hi Mark,
I have been reading with interest.
When you talk about using SQL Server as the backend ( I have never used SQL Server, so excuse my ignorance) do you use bound forms or are you forced to use unbound forms.
Pat

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Hi Patt,

Are you referring to using SQL Server with Access or ASP/Web?

When using SQL Server with Access front-end, you can use either bound or unbound forms. For that matter, you can also use either the ADP format or MDB – depending on the needs of your current situation.

Using SQL Server with ASP is very similar to using Access with ASP. Of course, if you want to make it REALLY optimized, you’ll need to make use of Stored Procedures and the ADO Command object for all inserts/updates/deletes. Refer to post 198187 for more details…

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Thanks Mark
I was talking about Access.
I may have to go that way sometime in the future, as I have Access databases that will grow to 300Mb to 400Mb (one DB per year).
At this stage I simply use the IN clause to determine where the queries should look for the data and this seems to work fine, although I understand it may not be the quickest way to interrogate the data (I believe that linked tables would be faster, how much faster I don’t know).
Thanks for taking your time to answer.
Pat

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The VBA tutorial I posted about earlier would be a handy thing to go through to help you learn VB. One, it teaches using Access 97, so it’s an environment you should already be familiar with. It will just show you another side to that environment. It’s about 50 or 60 pages, and though it doesn’t go into the really advanced stuff, it should give you a solid foundation to begin expiramenting on your own (that’s when you learn the most). Once you have VBA under your belt, VB is not a very big jump. Now instead of trying to tackle everything all at once, you’ll have the language down, and you’ll just have to deal with a new GUI.

I have found that the people I know that learned VBA in Access, and then picked up VB, learned to appreciate both equally. And they also seem to feel, like I do, that Access is an easier method of learning the language, since Access doesn’t throw a ton of concepts at you, all at once. I have also found those that learn VB in VB (like VB 6.0), tend to shy away from programming in Access, because they feel it’s limited. The fact is they are both well suited for the tasks they are designed for.

Anyhow, not to toot my own horn…, but I have gotten a lot of positive feedback on that tutorial. So if you do decide to read it, let me know if you have any comments or suggestions. I actually wrote it a few years ago, when I had some Access Dev’s here at my job that had no VBA experience, but were using the heck out of Access. Eventually I started handing it out to people on the various groups I watch, and then finally decided to post it on my site. (If you do read it, forgive the grammar, I reread it like 2 months ago, and I was wondering if English was really my primary (and only language). hehehe Just have been too busy to correct it all. Currently I am working on another tutorial, a bit more advanced, about Classes and Collections. When I get that done, I’ll go back and edit the VBA tutorial.

Drew

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