Operation Manual

583
USING DREAMWEAVER
Building applications visually
Last updated 3/28/2012
The data object creates a detail page (if you didn’t already create one) and adds dynamic content and server behaviors
to both the master and detail pages.
15 Customize the layout of the master and detail pages to suit your needs.
You can fully customize the layout of each page by using the Dreamweaver page-design tools. You can also edit the
server behaviors by double-clicking them in the Server Behaviors panel.
After creating master and detail pages with the data object, use the Server Behaviors panel (Window > Server
Behaviors) to modify the various building blocks the data object inserts into the pages.
More Help topics
“Edit dynamic content” on page 553
“Defining sources of dynamic content” on page 536
Building search and results pages
About search and results pages
You can use Dreamweaver to build a set of pages to let users search your database and view the search results.
In most cases, you need at least two pages to add this feature to your web application. The first page is a page that
contains an HTML form in which users enter search parameters. Although this page doesn’t do any actual searching,
it is referred to as the search page.
The second page you need is the results page, which performs most of the work. The result’s page does the following
tasks:
• Reads the search parameters submitted by the search page
• Connects to the database and searches for records
• Builds a recordset with the records found
• Displays the contents of the recordset
Optionally, you can add a detail page. A detail page gives users more information about a particular record on the
results page.
If you have only one search parameter, Dreamweaver lets you add search capabilities to your web application
without using SQL queries and variables. Simply design your pages and complete a few dialog boxes. If you have
more than one search parameter, you need to write a SQL statement and define multiple variables for it.
Dreamweaver inserts the SQL query in your page. When the page runs on the server, each record in the database
table is checked. If the specified field in a record meets your SQL query conditions, the record is included in a
recordset. The SQL query in effect builds a recordset containing only the search results.
For example, field sales staff might have information about customers in a certain area who have incomes above a
certain level. In a form on a search page, the sales associate enters a geographical area and a minimum income level,
and then clicks the Submit button to send the two values to a server. On the server, the values are passed to the
results page’s SQL statement, which then creates a recordset containing only customers in the specified area with
incomes above the specified level.