ASP or Access Data Page

[mordja]

Hi,

Ive been tasked with setting up an internal web page at work. Basically the page will allow modification of underlying data in an access database. I have never done this before and was hoping someone could point me in the right direction. As its internal all users will have office and ie so an access data page will not have any accessibility issues. Ive browsed a bit on the web but couldnt find any real good tutorials, or recommendations about which to use.

Suggestions ??

Thanks

Mordja

 

[PaulBricker]

I haven't tried using ADP since Access97. I don't know what improvements they've made since then, but if it isn't significant, I'd go with the ASP pages. Generally, the learning curve for simple ASP isn't very difficult and there is a lot out there for help on ASP. Not nearly as much for ADP.

Paul

 

[dhookom]

I would not spend too much time developing an ADP solution. I recommend ASP or ASP.NET.

Check out GenericDB

http://www.genericdb.com/

which is a very quick yet functional solution for creating asp pages to view and/or edit Access or SQL Server records. It is free and you can modify the code if needed.

Yesterday, I gave our employees the ability to edit a table of items available in our company store on our intranet. It took 15 minutes to get it working.

Duane MS Access MVP
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[FancyPrairie]

I too have been struggling as to which way to go. I've done several DAP beginning with Access 2000 and now 2003. Access 2003 is certainly much better. The script editor is not that great. It gets confused when you go outside of what Access is expecting. Consequently, I've been using FrontPage for some of my editing.

I've not developed ASP pages, but some of my coworkers have. And I'm not impressed. Mainly because I don't like having the user fill in a form and then press the submit button, only to find some of the answers are incorrect. I prefer checking the value the user enters immediately after they leave the field. And DAP provides this functionality (i.e. client-side scripting). It seems to me that one would have to jump through quite a few hoops to program ASP pages to validate user entry as they leave the field rather then after the submit button is pressed.

I'm speculating, but to fill in the fields on an ASP page from data from a table, one would have to write the code to do so. Likewise, to save the data from a form to a table, again, one would have to write the code to do it. Why bother when DAPs does this for you plus handles quite a few addition events?

So far, DAPs have not prevented me from doing what I want. I use DAP to handle the connections to the db and fields on my form. I use FrontPage to do things that it does better than Access, and vice-a-versa.

I guess I'm going to stick with DAPs until someone can show me the I can do client-side scripting (that is validate user entry as soon as the field looses) with ASP just as easily.

 

[dhookom]

FancyPrairie,
ASP.NET does validation and much more very easily. ASP.NET looks more like Access than it does ASP (IMHO).

Duane MS Access MVP
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[FancyPrairie]

Does the user need any dll's or other files loaded on their machine in order to run forms built with ASP.Net?

 

[dhookom]

I don't believe users need anything extra on their PCs. You would have to have .net loaded on the web server.

Duane MS Access MVP
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[mordja]

Thanks for your replies, I was leaning towards ASP and will now endeavour to teach myself over the weekend, ill have a look at genericdb.com and let you know how I went.
Oh one more question then, I set up microsoft ISS so I could test some asp. Which is a better connection method DSN or DSN-less, what are the pros and cons, and quite stupidly how do I find the UNC for an absolute path, is there some sort of servername equivalent of hostname ?

Cheers

Mordja

 

[fneily]

I just finished setting up an intranet/internet sytem for the Maryland Department Of Transportation that tracks their 10 Billion dollars worth of property they own. MDOT employees can interactively enter,edit, look at property data and it includes photos and hyperlinks and it runs on a II server. It was done with DAP's. If you already know how to code VBA or have done any Access programming, learning VBScript is a breeze. ASP will take you awhile to learn. Also, in the background, DAP and ASP run differently. DAP uses XML technology and DAP's are almost like a standard Access form - data enter goes straight to the table. When you use ASP, there's a translation time lag from the web page to the table and back again. There's alot of DAP information on microsoft's web site and on the net.

 

[Hap007]

Hi Duane,

I just went to see the sample at

http://www.genericdb.com

This appears to be a bad site/link.

Would you have a newer or correct location?

Thanks,
Hap...

Access Developer

http://www.fcs-software.com/fcsaccessdev.html

Access based Add-on Solutions
Access Consultants forum

http://www.tek-tips.com/threadminder.cfm?pid=1121

 

[payback]

I also had the same problem - found the following by doing a search for genericdb.

http://www.asp-generator.com/

Is it the same one?

 

[dhookom]

I have emailed the creator of GenericDb to see what's up with the application. He may allow someone to share a copy with you.

Duane MS Access MVP
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[Hap007]

Thanks to both of you


Access Developer

http://www.fcs-software.com/fcsaccessdev.html

Access based Add-on Solutions
Access Consultants forum

http://www.tek-tips.com/threadminder.cfm?pid=1121