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• Table of Contents• Reviews• CD-ROM• Reader Reviews• Errata• AcademicDreamweaver MX 2004: The Missing ManualBy
David Sawyer McFarland Publisher: O''ReillyPub Date: February 2004ISBN: 0-596-00631-4Pages: 840Slots: 1.0
Dreamweaver MX 2004: The Missing Manual
enables both first-time and experienced web designers to
bring stunning, interactive web sites to life. What sets
this new edition apart is the crystal-clear writing, welcome
humor, and exclusive features. With over 500 illustrations,
a handcrafted index, and the clarity of thought that has
made bestsellers of every Missing Manual to date, this new
edition is the ultimate atlas for Dreamweaver MX 2004.
22.4 Recordset Navigation
Dreamweaver's repeating region tool lets you display multiple database records on
a single Web page. But a recordset with large amounts of datalike 1,000 employee
recordswill quickly choke a Web page. A large amount of information takes a long
time to download and forces visitors to scroll for many screens to see all of it.Fortunately, the tool also lets you limit the number of records displayed at one time.
Of course, that presents its own set of problems: How do visitors see additional
records, and how do you let them know where they are among all the records in the
recordset?
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONA Little Less RepetitionI applied the Repeat Region object, and when I preview the page, the same record is repeated over and over. That's not what I wanted to do! What's going on? This can happen when you apply a Repeat Region object and inadvertently select the wrong recordset from the Repeat Region window (see Figure 22-12)a mistake that's easy to make if you've included more than one recordset on a page.The Repeat Region object adds programming code that steps through each record of a recordset. So, in practice, the Repeat Region object should get the information from the first record in a recordset and write it to the Web page, then go to the second record and add its info to the page. This process should continue until it's either gone through all the records in the recordset or reached the limit specified in the Records at a Time box.However, if the information you want repeated is retrieved by a different recordset than the one selected in the Repeat Region window, this system breaks down. Instead, the code continues to cycle through each record from the selected recordset, but doesn't cycle through each record from the recordset containing the dynamic information you want repeated. The result: You get the same information over and over again. The first record of the recordset (the one you want repeated) is repeated for each record in the other recordset (the one you don't want repeated).In other words, to ensure that Repeat Region works, select the recordset whose data is contained in the area you want repeated. |
navigation to a recordsetand providing useful feedback about the recordset.
22.4.1 Recordset Navigation Bar
Suppose a page contains a recordset that retrieves 100 records from a database, but
the repeating region on the page limits the display to ten records at a time. In this
case, you should insert a Recordset Navigation Bar to add either text links or graphic
buttons to a page. These navigation bars let your audience view the next ten records
in the recordset, jump to the last records in the recordset (see Figure 22-13), jump back to the first record, or move to previous records in the recordset.Dreamweaver's Recordset Navigation
Bar object prevents information
overload by letting users step
through easily digested pages of
information. The Navigation Status
message also keeps visitors informed
of how many records are available.
To add a Recordset Navigation bar, follow these steps:Click in the document window at the location you want to insert the navigation
bar. In the Application tab of the Insert bar, click the Recordset Paging button
and select Recordset Navigation Bar from the menu (see Figure 22-14).
EXTENSION ALERTRepeating Regions Left to Right and Top to BottomWhen you use the repeating region on a table row, you end up stacking each record on top of the next. While this successfully displays your records, it lacks pizzazz. Wouldn't it be great if you could list, say, a couple of records per row?For example, say you've got a database of books. You could display titles and covers for three books from left to right across the page, and then add another row of three books below that one, and so on.Dreamweaver MX 2004 can't do this out of the box, but you can turn to the creative army of programmers who write extensions. For the ASP and JSP server models, download Horizontal Looper from www.dwteam.com/Extensions/ . For PHP, there's a commercial product called MX Looper Suite at www.interakt.ro/products/overview_14l . |
Application ObjectsRecordset PagingRecordsetNavigation Bar. In either case, the Recordset Navigation Bar window appears.From the Recordset menu, select the recordset to navigate.
If the page contains more than one recordset, select the one that you used when
creating the dynamic table or adding the repeating region.Select whether to use text or graphic buttons for the navigation bar.
If you select Text, Dreamweaver will propose the words First, Previous, Next, and
Last to indicate the navigation controls. (You can edit them later.) The graphic
buttons represent standard VCR controls, representing forward and backward.
If you select this option, Dreamweaver copies the four .gif files into the folder
containing the dynamic Web page. Later, you can replace these graphics with ones
you created.
The Recordset Paging button lets you insert
a navigation bar for navigating the records
returned in a recordset. In addition, if you
want to build your own recordset navigation
system, you can individually apply server
behaviors like Move to First Record and
Move to Next Record. These server behaviors
are discussed in Section 24.3.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONBehaviors That Serve You WellWhat's the difference between Dreamweaver Behaviors (Chapter 12) and a server behavior? Both are prewritten programs created by Dreamweaver's engineers. They differ mainly in where the programs run and what they attempt to accomplish.A Dreamweaver Behavior is a JavaScript program that runs in a Web browser. It usually affects the interaction between a visitor and a Web page. For instance, the Swap Image behavior makes the Web browser exchange one image for another when a visitor mouses over a link. The behavior itself runs in the visitor's Web browser, and anyone can see the program by looking at the page's source code in the browser.A server behavior, on the other hand, always runs on the application serverthat is, on the Web-server side of the Internet. Instead of JavaScript, server behaviors can be in a variety of different languagesVBScript, PHP, C#, Java, and so on, depending on the server model your site uses. Server behaviors specifically let you create connections to databases and display, edit, and delete information from databases. Furthermore, since these programs run on the application server, your site's visitors never see the actual programming code. All they see if they look at the source of the page is plain old HTML (the results of the server program).In a nutshell, Dreamweaver Behaviors add interactive elements to a Web page, like rollovers and JavaScript alert boxes. Server behaviors supply the programming code needed to build sophisticated database-driven Web sites. |
Dreamweaver inserts a table into the document window, consisting of one row and
four columns. Each cell contains one text or graphic navigation button. You can change
the alignment and any other property of the table to fit your design.
NOTEIf you use the Recordset Navigation Bar frequently, you may long to replace the VCR-control graphics
that Dreamweaver displays. Just create your own graphics and name them FIRST.gif, LAST.gif, PREVIOUS.
gif, and NEXT.gif, and place them in the Dreamweaver MX 2004
ConfigurationSharedUltraDevImages folder.
22.4.2 Recordset Navigation Status
When you're viewing hundreds of records, it's nice to know where you are and how
many records there are in total. The Recordset Navigation Status tool adds just such
information to your pages, as shown in Figure 22-13. The status message is presented in the form of "Records 1 to 10 of 18," indicating which records the visitor is currently
viewing and the number of total records.Here's how to add a Recordset Navigation Status message:Click in the document window at the location you want to insert the status message. In the Application tab of the Insert bar, click the Recordset Navigation Status
button (see Figure 22-1).
You can also choose Insert
Application ObjectsDisplay Record CountRecordset Navigation Status. In either case, the Recordset Navigation Status windowappears.Select a Recordset from the menu.
If the page contains more than one recordset, you should select the one that you
used when inserting the Recordset Navigation bar.Click OK to close the window and insert the status message.
The Recordset Navigation Status message is simply text with the three dynamic text
items described in Figure 22-8. Change the words "Records," "to," and "of " to anything you like, such as "Products 110. 149 total products retrieved."
