Msaccess database on Windows 2000 host server

Newbee, your help and advice much appreciated.

[swefil]

Since 1995 I have been translating Swedish Philippine languages, I have my own domain on a windows 2000 host server, have recently had the site converted from unix to windows 2000.
My database has 22000 posts with eight language fields.
Although I have no problem with Dbases, I do lack the experience connecting my Dbase so as my users can search my databases.

At the moment, my language files all 130 of them in HTML, are taking up a lot of space.
I could really use some advice as the best way to proceed.

[hakre]

hi swefil,

welcome to webmasterworld. for your project you need a search-, result- and detaildisplay- page. these pages need to have the abbility to connect to your database. these are not static html pages, they are dynamical, they change according to a parameter or parameters passed to them. you can compare it to a commandline batch file which produces the output as html.

so you need a scripting language (on win2000 asp for example) or an executable installed on the server (win32 executeable) and executed via the cgi (common gateway interface) of your webserver.

all these scripts connect to your database, request a recordset or recordsets and return these values in a human readable form embedded into html. if you already have a access db, you could this on a win2000 server.

because of the lack of access to handle multiple users at the same time, it might be a good idea to convert it into mssql for example. i don't know how much visitors your website (will) have so you can start with access to make a first version and upgrade to another db in a later version. this makes sense to make a first move into a database driven site. the queries to the database might even remain the same, you only have to change the connection to the db later on. on win2k you can even use .dsn files for this you only need to change then.

on the other hand a local server on you desktop system would be good to have, to make a development on your system first and then upload it to your webhost. in general this makes the development faster, but you have to be capable to setup a webserver on your own. this server has to be compatible with your internet webserver.

checkout which services your hoster has: is asp supported? is cgi supported? are mdb files supported or which db technologies are available. then figure out which programming language you'd like to use.

maybe frontpage might be a solution, too. even if i do not recommend it personally, it might be easier then programming your own application. dreamweaver mx has a relativly easy and sql based database interface for multiple languages (asp, php, cfml) already build in, which makes it possible to create such pages easy in a graphical interface.

i hope this gives you a first start into the materia.

-hakre

[swefil]

Thank you hakre,
I have ASP and MDB capabillities on my host server, but I am not sure I have CGI or can use mySQL since I converted from Unix, I'll have to get in touch with my host provider for that information.

As for search-, result- and detaildisplay pages, I suppose these will be my biggest problem.

Thanks once again for the information.

[hakre]

hi swefil,

no problem. if you got asp, you can use asp instead of cgi for it. if you're not familiar with asp but you are with access and a bit of sql, checkout dreamweaver mx, which can do the search and result pages stuff for you. you already have everything you need.

how about a local testing system?

[txbakers]

Another point to consider - if your users will ever write to the database or update records you should really consider something other than access. Access will bog down enormously if you need to do anything but read from it.