Thanks John,

I have come to the same conclusion -- in some ways DW is making this so much more complicated than it needs to be I think. I think I'm going to dust off my old programming skills and see what I can do by hand. I've written this type of code ages ago -- but was hoping DW was going to make it al point/click-friendly....

Thanks for your response!
Pauline
---- John Williscroft <design@icatching.co.uk> wrote:
> 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
> >
> >
> > --
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>
>
>
>
> 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
>
>
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