FrontPage 2000 in the Classroom is produced by ACT360 Media Ltd.
in conjunction with Microsoft Corporation.
Copyright 1999. All rights reserved.


pixel At first, the class planned to have all the visitors' responses sent to Mr. Clark's e-mail address. FrontPage makes this easy to set up. But Mr. Clark thought it might be fun to share the responses with everyone - including other visitors!

blip So the kids created a simple database to store all of their visitors' responses.

pixel What, Gummy? Oh! Blip, Gummy says that making a database isn't easy - especially one that works with a Web form.

blip Good point, Gummy. The 6th graders weren't programmers, and Mr. Clark didn't have any specific database knowledge. Yet, with a few clicks here and there, FrontPage 2000 helped them create a dynamo information collector.

pixel Yeah, Gummy! The kids even made a Web page that displayed the information stored in their database. Mr. Clark said this page was very, uh, interactive. I'm not sure what that means, but I think in the 20th Century, that word meant something was good.




 


    After your visitors fill out your online form, they send it to you over the Internet. You can choose how to have it delivered. One option is to have it sent to you by e-mail. Every time a visitor completes a form, the information in the form is delivered to you in an e-mail message.

    To have visitors' data sent to your e-mail:

    1) Right-click over the form in your Web page. A pop-up menu appears.

    2) Click Form Properties. The Form Properties dialog box appears.

Right-click over the form to open this menu.

    3) Click the Send To radio button.

    4) Type your e-mail address into the E-mail address text box.

Enter an e-mail address.

    5) Click OK on the Form Properties dialog box.

 

 


 

    You can also create a simple database that gathers and publishes visitors' data on a Web page.

    To create a simple database:

    1) Right-click over the form. A short-cut box appears.

    2) Click Form Properties. The Form Properties dialog box appears.

Right-click over the form to open this menu.

    3) Click the Send to Database radio button.

    4) Click the Options button. The Options for Saving Results to Database dialog box appears.

Options for Saving Results to Database dialog box.

    5) Click the Create Database button. FrontPage creates a mini database for you. A message appears, telling you where you will find the database when you want to look at results from your form.

Note your database's location.

    6) Click OK on the Options for Saving Results to Database dialog box.

    7) Click OK on the Form Properties dialog box.



    TIP: When you finish creating your database, FrontPage 2000 may ask that you save your form page with an .asp (Active Server Page) extension. To do this, select Save As from the File menu. In the Save As dialog box, click the Save As Type box. Then select Active Server Pages from the drop-down list. Click the Save button to accept the changes and close the Save As properties box.


 


 
    After your visitors have submitted data to your database, you will probably want some way to view the data. There are two ways you can do this. You can view the data directly by opening the database in Microsoft Access 2000. Or, you can set-up FrontPage 2000 to present the database in a Web page.

    To view data using Access 2000:

    1) Click the Folders button on the View bar.

Click the Folders button.

    2) In the Folder list, click the folder marked fpdb. A list of database files appears.

    3) Double-click your database file in the Contents window. The file should have an .mdb extension. If Access 2000 is already installed on your computer, Access opens the specified database.

Double-click the database file.

    To present the database in a Web page:

    1) Click Insert on the Menu bar, and choose Database, then Results. The Database Results Wizard dialog box appears.

Alakazam!

    2) Click Use An Existing Database Connection. The name of your database (created in the previous section of the tutorial) appears in the text box under Use An Existing Database Connection.

Make sure the name of your database appears in this text box.

    3) Click Next.

    4) Click the Record Source radio button, and select Results from the drop-down list.

    5) Click Next. A list of fields displayed from each returned record appears. (Each of these fields represents the questions you asked on your form.)

A list of fields.

    6) Click Next.

    7) Select "Table - one record per row" from the drop-down list, and click on all three check boxes below.

    8) Click Next.

    9) Click Display all Records together, then click Finish.

Data from your database appears in your Web page.



    TIP: There must be data in your database for this table to display properly. (i.e. People have submitted data to the database using an online form.)