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 General discussion of site Learning HTML Planning and building Going live HTML editors Web development resources Ongoing skills development Web databases      |
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Taking
databases online
Database technology can facilitate site management, information dissemination, the collaborative development of research resources, and the online collection of survey data. It offers researchers new ways of conducting research and developing research products, as well as improving the management of existing resources. Having your database on the web also means that your users don't need the particular software you used to develop the database in order to access it. This Yenza! section looks at some of the technical options for taking databases online, examples of sites which use databases for a variety of purposes, sites which don't use databases but could consider doing so, and factors to take into account when deciding how - and whether - to make use of databases yourself. The materials are aimed primarily at individuals, departments and research projects rather than at large organizations intending to develop large-scale databases. If you are completely new to the area, start with one of the non-technical sections.
Technical OptionsThis section looks at a selection of the tools which are used to take databases online and to develop database-driven sites. It assumes some familiarity with databases and database software in general. Active Server PagesActive Server Pages (ASP) is a server-side technology from Microsoft which allows for the development of dynamic and interactive Web pages. ASP code (ActiveX scripting, often in VB Script or JScript) is embedded in an HTML page. When the page is requested from the Web server, the server first executes the ASP instructions, then constructs an HTML page which includes any ASP-generated information, and returns it to the client. TERENA
ASP introduction LearnASP 15
Seconds Cold
Fusion/ASP comparison table Cold FusionCold Fusion is a web application server (with the optional Cold Fusion Studio development tool) which generates HTML pages from database queries. Cold Fusion pages are written in HTML, with additional tags in Cold Fusion Markup Language (CFML) which are used to generate dynamic web pages from information contained in a database. Cold Fusion is generally thought to be easier to learn for non-programmers than ASP. Cold
Fusion Home Cold Fusion
Express is a free version of the Cold Fusion server which supports a
restricted number of tags: Web
Monkey Cold Fusion Resources Women-in-Research
Database Explanation Cold
Fusion 3.1 Example Applications Cold
Fusion/ASP comparison table CGI/PerlCGI (Common Gateway Interface) "provides a route by which dynamically generated non-WWW information can be made available via the WWW. It is a server-side technology in which the dynamic processing of information takes place at the server end and the results are sent back to the Web browser in an HTML page generated on-the-fly." (TERENA). CGI is often used to allow for searching databases, with Perl one of the most common languages used for CGI scripting. Terena
CGI Introduction Webmonkey's
Perl/CGI Resources Webopedia
Programming Glossary PHP is an increasingly popular open source (i.e., free) server-side scripting language used to create dynamic web pages. Like ASP, it is embedded in the code of HTML pages. Webmonkey PHP resources
Building a Database-Driven Web Site Using PHP and MySQL PHP Tutorials PHP Manual Official PHP site MS Access/FrontPageMicrosoft "Wizards" in MS Access and FrontPage allow Access databases to be taken online with Active Server Pages. Andrew
Deacon of the University of Cape Town's Multimedia Education Group
offers an overview of the way in which MS Access and FrontPage can be
used for publishing databases on the web: MS
Access-to-Web Databases (Microsoft) Among the database packages (some of which include servers) often used in tertiary institutions in South Africa and elsewhere are: MS
Access (Microsoft) FileMaker 4th
Dimension (ACI US) CDS/ISIS
(Free database-type programme from Unesco) MiscellaneousTechSoup Database Planning Workbook Web
Monkey Database Page Web
Database Primer Webopedia Database/Programming Information Basic
database explanation Database
terms Programming
glossary Or just search Webopedia:
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