Forum Moderators: phranque
Im looking into setting up a website for different businesses to advertise on. I will want a search facility so they can search by area, type of business etc.
The trouble is getting started, im not sure on what tables relationships to use for this. is there any place i can get sample databases/ ideas to get me started.
thanks
Andrew, I would suggest searching Google for "MS Access Examples" or "MS Access Links" or similar. You need to add in the MS to avoid confusion with "Entry Access Control" products and the likes.
Let me know how you go, if you have problems finding resources I will look through my bookmarks for you.
Onya
Woz
Im using a reseller?
thanks
If you mean flatfile or relational, it sounds like you'll need relational.
Andrew, it's not only accessing the data in a database through a search, the results have to be written out onto pages. Do as Woz suggested, and also check into using MySQL with PHP - there are some out there specifically with that combination and you might be able to find something open source.
Woz, you use Acess with ASP, isn't that right?
Also, I find that using some of the internal proccessing power of Access can speed things up. I see so many ASP solutions using Access as their database that do *everything* in the asp code itself. Whereas they could be speeding things up if they used internal queries to preprocess data before the asp gets hold of it. To my knowledge, MySQL cannot do this, although I could be wrong.
Andrew, if you have access to SQL Server then I assume you are/will be using ASP or ASP.net? If so then as you say, Access would make a good stepping stone.
But then, we are getting off topic, lets remember Andrew's request.
Onya
Woz
thanks
Im only starting off small but hope to get big, the problem is my reseller (who i have just joined up with) only supports MS Access and SQL Server. So is it realistic for me to start with ACCESS and migrate to SQL at a later date
thanks
try building a new database like "contact management" using the wizard,
its not directly suited to you but it will build it with the tables and relationships required plus built in queries...
by looking at the db produced by the wizard gives a pretty good idea of the kind of relationships and queries you might need.
i've found the ms access users newsgroup very handy too.
Take a look at some of the free "Classified Ads" or "Portal" scripts:
[directory.google.com...]
[hotscripts.com...]
[hotscripts.com...]
do you have "northwind.mdb" on your computer? :) thats a typical MS Access example. If you have frontpage, you can also check out the FP generated database results/editors that it can create
The mySQL suggestion is wise. Ive used MS stuff for about a year, and it takes you down the wrong road in regards to education, the MS road is a dead end ;) frontpage webbots / unwieldy access databases etc
but using access is easy, when you get to grips with it, itll take you no time :) I dunno about searches though, simply using SQL within access is one way to find data, but software dedicated to searching is another :)
One thing to remember is to use Access 97 for Web Stuff as it is faster than Access 2000. If you only have 2000 you can build your database and then convert to the 97 version before uploading. It does make a difference.
Onya
Woz
