[AccessD] OT - Getting started with Web development

Drew Wutka DWUTKA at marlow.com
Mon Dec 1 19:09:14 CST 2003


I guess, all depends on how rigid you can set the clients environment
(browser, OS, etc.)

Drew

-----Original Message-----
From: Mitsules, Mark S. (Newport News)
To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'
Sent: 12/1/03 2:35 PM
Subject: RE: [AccessD] OT - Getting started with Web development

I think what he was suggesting was client-side scripting.  Would that
approach work?



Mark


-----Original Message-----
From: Drew Wutka [mailto:DWUTKA at marlow.com] 
Sent: Monday, December 01, 2003 3:10 PM
To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'
Subject: RE: [AccessD] OT - Getting started with Web development


Just out of curiousity, how would that work with ASP?  The ActiveX
.dll's
would be used on the server, not the client, so you can get the info
about
the server, not the web client.....

Drew

-----Original Message-----
From: Jim DeMarco [mailto:Jdemarco at hshhp.org]
Sent: Monday, December 01, 2003 1:51 PM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: RE: [AccessD] OT - Getting started with Web development


VB 5.0 will work as well I believe (I misstated VB 6.0 below).  Just
create
a class within the DLL with LoginName and Machine properties (returned
from
your API calls).

Jim D.

-----Original Message-----
From: Mitsules, Mark S. (Newport News) [mailto:Mark.Mitsules at ngc.com]
Sent: Monday, December 01, 2003 2:28 PM
To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'
Subject: RE: [AccessD] OT - Getting started with Web development


Thank you Jim.  I tried that, but unfortunately our IT people must have
IIS
configured to accept anonymous access.  The only ServerVariables that
are
uniquely identifiable are REMOTE_ADDR and REMOTE_HOST.  There is one
machine
here loaded with VB 5.0 so I may be able to create that work-around you
suggested.


Mark



-----Original Message-----
From: Jim DeMarco [mailto:Jdemarco at hshhp.org] 
Sent: Monday, December 01, 2003 1:19 PM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: RE: [AccessD] OT - Getting started with Web development


Mark,

Here's code to get the logon name.  I don't know about the machine name
via
ASP but here's a URL that lists all the Request.ServerVariables you can
use:
http://www.4guysfromrolla.com/webtech/092298-3.shtml

<%
'anonymous access must be disabled in IIS for this to work
Response.Write
(Request.ServerVariables("LOGON_USER"))
%>

You do have the option however to use your existing VB/VBA code to grab
user
name and machine.  Just wrap it an ActiveX DLL and call that from your
ASP
code (if you use VB 6.0 that is). (it's the option I'd take if there is
no
server variable)

HTH,

Jim DeMarco
Director Product Development
Hudson Health Plan


-----Original Message-----
From: Mitsules, Mark S. (Newport News) [mailto:Mark.Mitsules at ngc.com]
Sent: Monday, December 01, 2003 12:02 PM
To: '[AccessD]'
Subject: RE: [AccessD] OT - Getting started with Web development


Drew,

I for one thank you for "Chapter 1".  As for writing an article or a
book, I
believe that you've already done most of the work.  You have a
searchable
archive of all of your posts for any given subject.  I'd be willing to
bet
you've already written it, you just need to gather it together.

I especially want to thank you for the "hit counter".  It gave me a
great
idea.  I have been relying on the IT-provided WebTrends report for
statistics regarding the departmental website that I administer.  But
their
statistics are at the division level, not departmental.

One not-so-quick question regarding Access v. ASP...  In a few of my
Access
apps I utilize API calls to capture the login name and machine name of
the
user.  Is it possible to replicate that functionality using any
combination
of ASP/HTML/VBScript?  (I once had an UNIX instructor who's motto was
"The
answer is always yes, the question is how.")

Thanks for any comments,


Mark


-----Original Message-----
From: Drew Wutka [mailto:DWUTKA at marlow.com] 
Sent: Friday, November 28, 2003 7:07 PM
To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'
Subject: RE: [AccessD] OT - Getting started with Web development


I've thought about writing a long set of articles to put on my website,
but
I always find something else comes up...know what I mean?

Drew

-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Lawrence (AccessD) [mailto:accessd at shaw.ca]
Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 2003 7:26 PM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: RE: [AccessD] OT - Getting started with Web development


Hi Drew:

Have you ever thought about writing a book on the subject...You have
finished chapter one.

...I teasing... :-)

Very good introductory
Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com]On Behalf Of Drew Wutka
Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 2003 2:55 PM
To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'
Subject: RE: [AccessD] OT - Getting started with Web development


Paul, I have been developing ASP project for quite some time now.  I
think I
can narrow down what you REALLY need to know to get started.

First of all, before you dig into web development, you MUST understand
how a
web server and web pages work.  It is a whole different ball of wax
compared
to an Access FE.  With an Access FE, you create forms and reports, and
each
user has a copy (or uses a shared FE) of the front end.  This has
several
drawbacks.  First of all, if you have copies of the FE all over, you
have to
create an update process to push out new changes.  If you have a shared
FE,
then you have to kick everyone out to update the process.  On top of
that, a
user can be anywhere, so there can always be issues of where things are
located.  One user may have a share mapped to S, while another has it
mapped
to T.  UNC's can handle this, but then there is also the issue of
whether
people are able to even get to the locations involved.  On a web server,
all
of these issues are moot.

The way a web server works, is the client opens their browser and
requests a
web page.  Let's say they go to http://MyWebsite.com.  The browser does
a
few things, one of which is it sends an http request to the server
sitting
at whatever mywebsite.com resolves too.  (http is Hyper Text Transfer
Protocol.  HTML is Hyper Text Markup Language.  So, HTTP is the protocol
uses to transport HTML.).  The server at the other end gets an http
request
for it's root directory.  Notice the URL doesn't have a specific file
(this
is a KEY point to remember).  That is just fine and dandy, because a
webserver can be asked for a page by just the 'folder', since each
folder
can have a default document setup.  In most cases it is index.htm or
default.asp, but it can quite frankly be any document you want (or even
a
list of documents).  For our example, let's say it's default.asp.  The
web
server then reads the default.asp page and runs it through it's ISAPI
filters.  These are filters that cause various things to be done to the
HTML
that is going to be sent back.  Two good examples of this are includes
and
ASP itself.  Includes are when you mark another file or files to be
included
within the document.  So, if you have a header that you want on every
page,
instead of putting the HTML for that header on every page, you put the
header in it's own file, and just include it in all of your pages.  The
include ISAPI filter then incorporates that HTML in the outgoing HTML.
You
can also include .asp code, similar to putting code in a module, versus
behind every form/report.  The ASP ISAPI filter is a little more
complex.
Instead of just replacing text, it actually 'works' the ASP code on the
page.

This is the CORE of ASP.  What the end user get's, is just the outgoing
HTML.  They never get the ASP code itself.  ASP can either be passive or
dynamic.  My own terms for the two actions ASP can perform.  Passive is
when
the ASP does something that the users can't see. Dynamic is when ASP
does
something that the users DO see.  For example.  If the default.asp page
was
like this:

<%
dim cnn
dim rs
dim strSQL
set cnn=server.createobject("ADODB.Connection")
set rs=server.createobject("ADODB.Recordset")
cnn.Provider="Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0"
cnn.Open "E:\MyDB.mdb"
strSQL="SELECT Hit FROM tblHits;"
rs.Open strSQL,cnn,1,3
rs.AddNew
rs.Fields(0).value=1
rs.Update
rs.close
set rs=nothing
cnn.close
set cnn=nothing
%>
<HTML>
Hello
</HTML>

The end user will get a page that says hello, but internally, the ASP
page
has added a record to a database, in this case, a simple hit counter.
This
is passive, since the user will always get 'Hello', no matter what they
do.
The ASP code is doing work, but it's something the end user doesn't see.

Dynamic ASP pages are where the output the user sees is directly
affected by
the ASP code.  To do this, you must either use the = symbol (which is a
shortcut to have the ASP send something out with the resulting HTML
stream),
or the response.write procedure.

For example, let's have default.asp be this:

<%
dim strIP
strIP=request.ServerVariables("REMOTE_ADDR")
%>
<HTML>
Your IP Address is: <%=strIP%> <br>
<%
response.write "Have a nice day."
%>
</HTML>

What the user will see is a message that has their IP address, like
this:

Your IP Address is: 65.65.125.209
Have a nice day.

We used the equal since to 'insert' something into the normal HTML with
ASP,
and then we used response.write to directly output a string into the
outgoing HTML stream.

The last thing to remember when dealing with a web server is that the
end
users are getting whatever the web server hands out, the moment they
request
it.  Once they get the resulting HTML stream, and their browser displays
the
page, there is no longer a connection to the file they requested.  That
means if you are constantly updating asp pages, the end users will just
simply get the 'current' results at the time of their request.  No
kicking
everyone out, etc.  Pretty handy.

Three more items to cover. Above was the biggie.  First of the three.
HTML.
HTML is actually pretty simple.  I personally used Front Page when I
started
out, to let it do the HTML for me, then after a few months of going back
and
forth, I just got the hang of it, and I rarely ever use FP for writing
the
HTML anymore.  The two key items to remember with HTML is that
everything is
written with tags.  Some tags are stand alone, such as <BR> (which is a
line
break), and some tags must have a start and finish (<HTML> and </HTML>,
or
an easier example <b> and </b> which is for bolding text).  Tags also
can
have properties.  For example, an anchor tag (for hyperlinks) is a.  <a
href="http://wolfwares.com">Click here to go to Wolfwares.com</a>  <a
starts
the tag, it has an href property, which is the URL of the site/file the
hyperlink points too, then the tag is closed with the >, and between the
start tag, and the closing tag </a>, there is text, which is what the
user
will see as the text of the hyperlink.  The second key item to remember
with
HTML is that no matter what format you write the HTML in, what the user
sees
in the browser is determine by the TAGS, not by the HTML code.

So if you write:

<HTML>
This is a
Test
</HTML>

The user sees:
This is a Test

If you write:
<HTML>This is a <br>Test</HTML>

The user sees:
This is a
Test

Second of the three is a BIG difference between Access and ASP.  Access
runs
it's code on the users processor.  This is both good and bad.  Bad,
because
the end user must have Access (or a run-time installed).  Also, bad
because
users on slower machines are going to be delayed longer then users on
fast
machines.  Good, because as long as the end users have the correct
software/runtimes, your application should almost be gauranteed to work.
With ASP, if you write standard HTML, it doesn't matter what you have
the
ASP code do.  Your ASP code only has to run on the web server.  Your
clients
can be running Pentium 4's, with IE, or Mac's with Netscape, and
everyone
sees the same results.  A client running a 2.6 gigahertz on a 56k modem
is
going to run your application at the same speed (well, pretty much the
same
speed) as a client running a 486 66mhz with a 56k modem.  In fact, if
your
pages are light enough on the output (little to no graphics, just plain
HTML.....) there isn't going to be much of a difference between a modem
user
or a broad band user. Text transfers pretty quickly....though you could
have
slow downs if there is just a ton of text being sent (like combo boxes
that
have thousands of items in their lists).  The final issue with this part
is
client side scripting.  I personally stay away from it like the plague,
unless it's for in house projects where I know everyone is using IE. So
try
to make your applications run strictly with ASP, unless absolutely
necessary.

Third of the three.  The real nuts and bolts of ASP.  ASP can be written
in
JScript or VBScript.  Quite frankly I have never bothered to use
JScript,
since VBScript is practically second nature.  When writting ASP, you
enclose
the ASP code with <% and %> (start and end tags for ASP), and then write
away with VBScript.  There are two things to remember/research. ASP is
VBScript with extra objects (Application,
ObjectContext,Request,ASPError,Response,Server,Session). The three you
are
going to deal with the most are Request, Response and Server.  Request
gives
you access to what you have been 'sent' by the user. It can be used to
read
cookies, server variables (which include Usernames, passwords,IP
Addresses,
browser types, etc.), and form data. Response is what you use to send
data
back to the user (response.write outputs to the HTML stream, redirect
can
actually change the URL the end user is receiving, etc.).  Server is the
webserver itself. The two main methods you will probably use are
MapPath(Which let's you map a virtual or actual path to a file) and
CreateObject.  That CreateObject is the big catch with ASP and VBScript.
In
normal VBScript you just call CreateObject.  But with ASP, you must use
the
Server Object's CreateObject method to create an object in VBScript.
(Because the object must be created by the webserver).

That's ASP in a nutshell.  The first item I talked about is a little
difficult to figure out from the MSDN, the rest is in the MSDN, but can
still be a little difficult to figure out.  The details on everything
(HTML
tags, ASP objects, etc.) are pretty much well explained in the MSDN
though.

The last thing you will need to know about ASP pages versus Access FE's
is
how to get data FROM the user. (we already discussed sending it to them,
with the response.write method).  I mentioned the request object.  The
two
methods of getting data from the user are through forms and
querystrings.  A
querystring is what follows a URL (after a ?).  So, if you have a URL
like
this: http://MyWebsite.com/default.asp?MyValue=10 , you can retrieve the
value of MyValue by using the request.QueryString method, like this:

<%
response.write request.QueryString("MyValue")
%>

If you have an HTML form, and you POST the data:

<HTML>
<BODY>
<Form Name="MyForm" Method=post action="results.asp">
<input type=text name="MyValue">
<input type=submit>
</form>
</body>
</HTML>

The resulting page will have a textbox, and a submit button.  Pressing
the
submit button will send the data within the MyValue textbox to
results.asp.
So if results.asp was this:

<%
response.write request.form("MyValue")
%>

The results page will output whatever was in the textbox.

The key difference between a QueryString and a Form is that QueryStrings
are
limited by the max length of a URL (which is, I think, 2048
characters...maybe 1024 characters, not sure).  Where as a form is not
limited in the amount of data that can be submitted.  You can also refer
to
a request 'variable' by just the request object.  request("MyValue") can
be
a value in either a QueryString OR a Form.

Phew, what an email.  This was fun to write though.  Keep in mind that
ASP
doesn't directly like DAO, so write your code using ADO.  Feel free to
contact me offlist if you have specific questions.  I may get hammered
for
the length of this email, but I think it's pertinent to Access
development
on the web!

Drew



-----Original Message-----
From: paul.hartland at fsmail.net [mailto:paul.hartland at fsmail.net]
Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 2003 9:55 AM
To: accessd
Subject: [AccessD] OT - Getting started with Web development


To all,
I'm looking to start writing web pages etc, secure logins, returning
resultsets in tables from Access & SQL Server etc. Anyone know any good
sites to get me started along with any book recommendations ? Thanks in
advance for all your help Paul Hartland
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"This electronic message is intended to be for the use only of the named
recipient, and may contain information from Hudson Health Plan (HHP)
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confidential or privileged.  If you are not the intended recipient, you
are
hereby notified that any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of the
contents of this message is strictly prohibited.  If you have received
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