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Are these possible with dbman?

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Are these possible with dbman?
I am currently looking to convert to a database driven website. I have numerous cgis running at my non-profit art/writing site which I thought can be consolidated into numerous databases run from one engine, I have no access to mySQL (yet)

Can dbman handle multiple databases?

Yesterday, I created my first database of a portfolio display in Ezdb, whereby user can search and get a result listing of pictures and short description, the user can then click on any item and be directed to a page with more description....

Is that possible with DBman? EZdb interface is quite nasty, and support is worse than minimal it appears.

Is it possible to return a random record?

I read on this forum, that it is possible to truncate a field to be displayed as a summary field..... what I can't a way to do in EZdb, and the ability to not display blank fields is definitely nice and based on what I read here, POSSIBLE. I am very interested in switching!

Any advice appreciated.
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Re: [Oink] Are these possible with dbman? In reply to
In Reply To:
Can dbman handle multiple databases?

Yep.

In Reply To:
Yesterday, I created my first database of a portfolio display in Ezdb, whereby user can search and get a result listing of pictures and short description, the user can then click on any item and be directed to a page with more description....

Is that possible with DBman? EZdb interface is quite nasty, and support is worse than minimal it appears.

A short-long display is no problem for DBMan.

In Reply To:

Is it possible to return a random record?

Yes.
_______________________________________________________
Lem Motlow, Proprietor Lynchburg (pop 361), Tenn.
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Re: [Oink] Are these possible with dbman? In reply to
A great place to start would be to check out JPDeni's DBMan tutorial site. She also has several mods available including the short/long mod.

You can use her configurator to help get started in creating your fields and add_form, and display pages.

http://www.jpdeni.com/dbman/

You might also want to scan through the FAQ noted below as it contains many tips and trick for using DBMan.

It's a great script, I think you will enjoy working on your project.

Unoffical DBMan FAQ

http://creativecomputingweb.com/dbman/index.shtml/

Last edited by:

LoisC: Apr 1, 2002, 11:13 PM
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Re: [LoisC] Are these possible with dbman? In reply to
Thank you for the impressively fast response at 2:30am EST! I found Jpdeni.com and in the process of doing the very detailed tutorial. My first configurator exercise however failed.... I am checking the cfg and html files, but all in all, this is definitely one step up from EZdb.

My first exercise is to convert an existing link submission page to a DBman database. I want to have it set up so admin gets notificaion of any email submission and it won't be display until approved... The email feature is I believe via a mod.

It seems like the short-long display is via a mod, but I haven't found anything about random display yet.
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Re: [Oink] Are these possible with dbman? In reply to
You would want to start with the short/long mod on JPDeni's site. Once the configurator gives you the output you need to add that to your html.pl file. The output she provides replaces 2 subs within the html.pl file. And provides the .cfg file.

For the admin email, look in the FAQ under email to see the codes to have admin notified of a new record added. You will also want to add the validation mod which would give you the ability to verify records before they are viewable by the public.

The random record display is also a mod called "Random record mod and is available in either the Resource Center here on this site, or from the FAQ (under records or mods).

Unoffical DBMan FAQ

http://creativecomputingweb.com/dbman/index.shtml/
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Re: [LoisC] Are these possible with dbman? In reply to
Sorted out the error. I replaced the html.pl with the configurator file instead of changing just the subroutines... next step...

Should I be looking at the mods now since those are the features I require in this exercise or implementing them once the database is working... I haven't look at the installation of the mod codes yet.

Short of a .htaccess, is there a better way to implement a redirection, say my link submission page is at http://mydomain/jazzgrrls/index.cgi, and after conversion to dbman, it would have to be redirected to http://mydomain/cgi-bin/dbman.cgi?db=jazzgrrls&login=default&pw=default&login=1... Not as easy to remember. Suggestion?
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Re: [Oink] Are these possible with dbman? In reply to
The short/long mod is actually a replacement for the html.pl file, so you would want to start using that right away.

There are many changes to the original html file.

As far as your redirection, that would depend on whether you are going to have people signup so they can also modify their links later. If so, perhaps you could just use meta tags to redirect to static page which contains a login form, just an idea.

By having your users signup for their own username and password would enable the option to identify records with their owners so they have the ability to make changes at a later time.

Unoffical DBMan FAQ

http://creativecomputingweb.com/dbman/index.shtml/
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Re: [Oink] Are these possible with dbman? In reply to
While mileage may vary, I've found it is much easier to modify DBMan with the fields and layout you'd like before proceeding on to mods. Remember, when working with mods, make a backup of your files in working condition before starting the mod and fully complete a mod before moving to another.

~ Karen
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Re: [LoisC] Are these possible with dbman? In reply to
In this database, users can submit link and a bio, and the link will be validated by an admin, no sign-up... no modification. In fact what the user sees is name and link only, most of the fields are used by the admins

Managed to get it working the way I want to... It is now the tedious task of changing the 24 or so html pages within the html.pl file. Would be nice to have a template with the shorter 24 sections... Thank you all for your advice and I have learned heaps in the past 24 hours.

Once it is done, I think I will do a .htaccess index of the dircetory to map to the URL of dbman with a default search of all database.... would really ike the user to think it is a static page.
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Re: [Oink] Are these possible with dbman? In reply to
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It is now the tedious task of changing the 24 or so html pages within the html.pl file. Would be nice to have a template with the shorter 24 sections

You mean for the page top and bottoms? The user friendly short/long mod uses subs for these, and you can put all your formatting into one format.pl file. This way all of your pages can be formatting within one file. You can add all yoru variables such as for font size, etc. in that one file.

Unoffical DBMan FAQ

http://creativecomputingweb.com/dbman/index.shtml/