Re: Integrating Dreamweaver with Excel

Nick:

Yes--it is certainly possible to work with an Access database. If you are on
an NT server, you can generate Active Server Pages, (ASP), and pull data
from Access or a SQL database. I would think that Excel--by itself--would be
a little "iffy".

If--Using Microsoft products, I "think" that most would keep their raw data
in Access and use Excel only for spreadsheet/display work by pulling the
data from Access. (or other more robust databases.) One could then use any
of the several editors designed for ASP/database work.

When we first started looking into ASP, as I recall, there was a Dreamweaver
companion called Drumbeat that was designed to work with ASP much like
InterDev is designed to work with FrontPage. Now--it may all be in one
program. I'm just not that familiar with Dreamweaver.

However, all that aside, Dreamweaver is basically a HTML editor like FP and
many others and of course you can design pages that will be used with ASP,
(Just like you could in the infamous NotePad.) Dreamweaver is just a tool,
albeit a rather nice one.

ASP will allow you to call a page and insert data into parts, (areas) of
that page. It will allow you to "assemble" them on the fly, based on the
criteria your visitor types into a form, (or a preset cookie to present
customer oriented pages). The added bonus is that you can work with either
JavaScript or VBScript--both very similar--easy to use--and familiar to
many. And--as the scripting is working at the server level, the final page
that is presented is browser independent as far as ASP is concerned.

As our client that started us looking into ASP refused to leave his Apache
server, we dropped the project and turned him over to another firm that
specialized in CGI. Although possible, generally Apache servers and ASP are
not that compatible. I understand the new people eventually got it working
for him although the cost in time and money was ("whewwww").

I kind of think I'm safe in saying that "most" consider ASP less expensive
and easier to work with than either CGI or Cold Fusion. On the other hand,
someone who has spent enough of his/her life to learn Perl may feel
differently??

If you want to learn more about ASP, here is a URL to start:
http://www.learnasp.com/

Look down toward the bottom of the page on the right hand side. There is a
good sized list of ASP sources.

We did get a lot of good information from a book called:
Active Server Pages for Dummies by Bill Hatfield.

And of course, if your ISP will run the Extensions, you can work with a
simple database right out of FrontPage 2000. It will generate simple ASP to
work with Access. However, it is somewhat limited. But for a small database,
it does not get much simpler.

Bottom line?? Nothing wrong with Dreamweaver -- but-- Do lots of research
before you start.

Best wishes
Ted Temer
Temercraft Designs Redding, CA
temer(at)c-zone.net
www.temercraft.com/novels/
www.newsredding.com/
www.ramac-rc.org/


> Is it possible to integrate dreamweaver with an Microsoft Excel Sheer or
an
> Access Database?  Basically, we have an entire price list in excell and we
> would like each product page on our web site to pull its prices from the
> excell sheet.  So that everytime we update the excell sheet it updates the
> pricing on the pages.
>
> We dont want to import the entire price sheet into a table on one page,
but
> rather have each seperate product page pull the pricing for that item from
> the excell sheet.
>
> I gope that all makes sense.
>
> Thanks all!
>
> Nick
>
>

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