Adobe Dreamweaver CC 2015 - Manual (Page 650)

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Building applications visually
Last updated 6/3/2015
To add an HTML form to a search page, complete the following procedure.
1 Open the search page or a new page, and select Insert > Form > Form.
An empty form is created on the page. You might need to enable Invisible Elements (View > Visual Aids > Invisible
Elements) to see the form’s boundaries, which are represented by thin red lines.
2 Add form objects for users to enter their search parameters by selecting Form from the Insert menu.
Form objects include text fields, menus, options, and radio buttons. You can add as many form objects as you want
to help users refine their searches. However, keep in mind that the greater the number of search parameters on the
search page, the more complex your SQL statement will be.
3 Add a Submit button to the form (Insert > Form > Button).
4 (Optional) Change the label of the Submit button by selecting the button, opening the Property inspector (Window
> Properties), and entering a new value in the Value box.
Next, you’ll tell the form where to send the search parameters when the user clicks the Submit button.
5 Select the form by selecting the
6 In the Action box in the form’s Property inspector, enter the filename of the results page that will conduct the
database search.
7 In the Method pop-up menu, select one of the following methods to determine how the form sends data to the
server:
• GET sends the form data by appending it to the URL as a query string. Because URLs are limited to 8192
characters, don’t use the GET method with long forms.
• POST sends the form data in the body of a message.
• Default uses the browser’s default method (usually GET).
The search page is done.
Build a basic results page
When the user clicks the form’s Search button, the search parameters are sent to a results page on the server. The results
page on the server, not the search page on the browser, is responsible for retrieving records from the database. If the
search page submits a single search parameter to the server, you can build the results page without SQL queries and
variables. You create a basic recordset with a filter that excludes records that don’t meet the search parameter submitted
by the search page.
Note: If you have more than one search condition, you must use the advanced Recordset dialog box to define your recordset
(see ).
Create the recordset to hold the search results
1 Open your results page in the Document window.
If you don’t have a results page yet, create a blank dynamic page (File > New > Blank Page).
2 Create a recordset by opening the Bindings panel (Window > Bindings), clicking the Plus (+) button, and selecting
Recordset from the pop-up menu.