Website Building

apples101

Well i have started a business which i can do in my spare time from home and i need help setting up a web site.

I have already registered the name and hosting package is sorted. (windows platform)

i need help using forms on web pages. i am using Microsoft Publisher as it is already on my computer and the form page isn't working.

i belive my host requires data files to be stored in a separate Data file to that of my main HTML files. all i get is page cannot not be found code 404.

can anyone help me?

Thanks in advance.

Browntoa

if you mean microsoft Frontpage (sure publisher does not do web sites ??) then your web space needs Frontpage extensions enabled , other types of forms use CGI which is also turned off by some cheap web hosts

you can use Bravenets free email form

http://www.bravenet.com/webtools/emailfwd/index.php

which produces the basic HTML to paste into your site, you can modify the basic layout of it one it's embedded in your page

Bob63

Browntoa wrote:

you can use Bravenets free email form

http://www.bravenet.com/webtools/emailfwd/index.php

which produces the basic HTML to paste into your site, you can modify the basic layout of it one it's embedded in your page

Yuck! Forms with adverts. 10 foot bargepole is a phrase that springs to mind with Bravenet.

Mike

Browntoa

I know what you mean

was offering the easy way out

nickmack

apples101 wrote:

Well i have started a business which i can do in my spare time from home and i need help setting up a web site.

i need help using forms on web pages. i am using Microsoft Publisher as it is already on my computer and the form page isn't working.

i belive my host requires data files to be stored in a separate Data file to that of my main HTML files. all i get is page cannot not be found code 404.

If it's just a simple form you need to make, why not just code it yourself.
It will save having a bloated Microsoft version of the page requiring FP extensions.

W3Schools Form Tutorial should give you the info you need.

You have a copy of Notepad on your PC, so use that to write the HTML and then save it with the appropriate extension.

wonka

Browntoa wrote:

...(sure publisher does not do web sites ??) ....

Actually, you can save MS Publisher documents as HTML. But I certainly wouldn't use it for forms, since I believe it doesn't give you access to the HTML.

If forms are to be used, then I would agree that Frontpage is a better option, or better still, learn HTML.

Or, even better, use some opensource (free) scripts:
http://www.opensourcecms.com/

nickmack

wonka wrote:

Actually, you can save MS Publisher documents as HTML. But I certainly wouldn't use it for forms, since I believe it doesn't give you access to the HTML.

Personally I wouldn't use it for anything to do with the web.
Avoid avoid avoid.

Publisher is not a tool for designing web pages.

wolfman

Grab something like Visual Studio Express (it's free) or Eclipse (free too).
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/

If you're working with forms, something like .Net is very effective as it has inbuilt form validators. You'll also want to setup an Access (or Sql? may be overkill for your uses) database for storing all of the data. Visual Studio (or Sql Server Express) can help you build a database and connect to/insert data.

If you're new to web applications it will take time to learn and build professional forms. If that's what you aim to do, it's worth starting with the right tools.

There are plenty of tutorials about. I'm personally a Java developer but have recently started to switch to the .Net 2.0 platform as it's very easy to pickup/use/develop with. The only downside is that you need .Net hosting which costs a little more.

apples101

Thanks for the info, will look into the the options available.

BTW. downloaded Dreamweaver 8 yesterday.... how complicated........

I am avarage at Access (have developed several simple dB's and currently developing a more advanced one with VB) so i should have no probs doingthat side of things.....

Question.

Can i use ACCESS to build a data access page for the web?

wolfman

apples101 wrote:

Can i use ACCESS to build a data access page for the web?

Kind of. Setup tables within your Access database, and you can use a scripting language (like asp.net, php, etc...) to pull off the data and output it onto the page.

Access is basically used as the database, nothing more.

nickmack

apples101 wrote:

Can i use ACCESS to build a data access page for the web?

As wolfman said, Access is just the backend.

If you're already familiar with VB, then you shouldn't have too many problems using a Server Side language such as VBScript to do your DB calls.