Hi Pauline
I think there's a clash of ideals, perhaps. Some people treat DW as a
crutch and rely on it completely, with no understanding of html or
web development. However, you've been trying to understand more about
the in-depth workings of what you need to do, and I think that means
you really need to just use DW as a tool to speed up your development
of the site. In other words, you need to get your hands dirty and
work in code view :-)

The first question is where is the site going to be hosted and what
sort of middleware (programming language, e.g. Lasso, PHP, asp) will
you use and what is the database you'll be using. That defines what
language you need to learn and how the code will link to the
database. I'd forget the idea of a spreadsheet because it's insecure;
if someone enters the full path (i.e. www.yoursite.com/
passwords.xls), they'll see all your passwords! In any case, if you
open an Excel file in a text editor, you'll see all sorts of rubbish
in there as well as the text you want - it's difficult to separate
the two, so what people generally do in that case is save the Excel
file as a csv file (which is just the text values with a comma in
between them all, so you read it in and dump the commas).

I use a system for login (I use the Lasso application language),
where people enter a username and password (often, I'll use their
email address as the password). That's just a simple html form on the
first page. On the page that receives that, I check the database
against the username and retrieve the password. I compare each letter
of that against the entered password (usually case sensitive), and if
it's valid, I set a session variable. If it's wrong, I display a link
to try again. On subsequent pages, I check for the presence of the
session variable, and allow the page to display if it's set. You can
read up about 'session variables' in whatever language you use - the
idea is they automatically carry around some encoded information
without you having to write code to manually check a database or cookie.

So, there's a lot to learn, mainly about whatever programming
language you choose. However, if I'm wrong about your interest and
you just want to rely on DW to do everything, then I can't help there
- sorry! I can recommend the Lasso application language, by the way -
it's easy to use, intrinsically secure and can eventually be very
powerful. There's also a DW plug-in you can buy, although it's better
to learn the coding yourself - you can install a developer version on
your Mac. See http://www.lassosoft.com/

best rgds
john



On 3 Sep 2009, at 19:43, Pauline Johnson wrote:

> Hey all,
>
> I am a newbie to Dreamweaver CS4 (Mac platform; my background is in
> print using CS applications). I have several basic HTML sites up
> and running, some video, download capabilites, etc., but now need
> to move along to a new functionality. I have spent hours pouring
> over the Dreamweaver CS4 Bible, and have a handle on putting
> together the elements to allow a simple login where the user is
> directed to a single page based on his/her username and password.
> Here is whatI am struggling to understand:
>
> 1. Can my validation table be an Excel spreadsheet?
>
> 2. Where can I get consise info on setting up the database server
> connection -- the book has so many "options" -- DNS, DNS-less,
> etc., talking about setup is so different on the Mac platform,
> etc., that it is overwhelming.
>
> My needs are very narrow, this site will only have a few users but
> each one needs to go to a separate page and not see anyone else's
> page.
>
> I have old programming skills in VB, and dbase ... I've googled for
> lots of info, and have read tons on the Adobe Dreamweaver site, but
> it seems like there is "too much" info that appears conflicting ...
> just need some help in sorting it all out.
>
> Any direction would be much appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
> Pauline
>
>
> --
> This list is a free service of LassoSoft: http://www.LassoSoft.com/
> Search the list archives: http://www.ListSearch.com/Dreamweaver/
> Browse/
> Manage your subscription: http://www.ListSearch.com/Dreamweaver/
>
>




John Williscroft, iCatching Design Ltd
www.icatching.co.uk t:0845 644 2884 f:0871 733 5358
design@icatching.co.uk
graphic design | web-design | ecommerce | print design


iCatching Design Ltd
24 Hampden Avenue
Thame
OX9 2DT
Registered in England at the above address
Company No. 04584788
VAT No. 685899838


--
This list is a free service of LassoSoft: http://www.LassoSoft.com/
Search the list archives: http://www.ListSearch.com/Dreamweaver/Browse/
Manage your subscription: http://www.ListSearch.com/Dreamweaver/