Starting with UltraDev - Page 2

With PWS up and running, you can now turn your attention to Dreamweaver UltraDev. It's really two separate programs - Dreamweaver the HTML editor, and UltraDev the ASP editor - welded together. But unlike many twin-sets this one's not a double whammy. The joint is clearly visible but it's a fine piece of welding.

You'll be at a definite advantage if you're already familiar with Dreamweaver. It's also worth knowing a little about databases, at least the basics of tables, fields and records. You won't be able to progress very far with ASP unless you understand databases.

Macromedia is well-known for producing fine tutorials for its software and UltraDev is no exception. It's definitely worth spending a couple of hours following the UltraDev tutorial that's included with the package. You won't finish up as an ASP expert after that brief amount of time, but you will have produced a couple of pages, and more importantly you'll have been gently guided through the configurations that are necessary to get your ASP working and UltraDev showing you that it works even while you're still coding.

The first of these configurations is defining the local site (directory) where you're going to hold your working files. Once you've got these files in good shape, you'll be sending them (or to use the correct terminology, "putting" them) to the remote site, which is a server directory - one that you've told PWS it can publish. It's very similar to the relationship between a local and remote site in FTP. The difference is that in this case it's likely that both the directories will be on your hard drive.

It can seem a bit of a performance, shifting files around like this when they're probably in neighbouring directories to start with, but it's good practice and mirrors the way you deal with files that are published on real servers.

Another set-up item that quickly comes into play either with the Ultradev tutorial or with a genuine new project is configuring UltraDev's Live Data window. This is probably the single strongest feature of UltraDev and one you'll be using time after time.

If you're familiar with Dreamweaver, you'll know it allows you to check that the HTML you've just messed with works well in a browser - using the Preview in Browser feature. Live Data is similar but more advanced. It allows you to run your ASP code and see that it works, without leaving the development window.

That's where PWS comes in. UltraDev latches on to it as a real server, puts your page through it for real and then shows the output on screen. Since there's no browser involved, some elements of layout are not perfectly WYSIWYG, but the important thing is that the code is run and any problems with the ASP and database connections should show up. It's a true peach of a feature.

The instructions included in the UltraDev tutorial for configuring the Live Data window are thorough and there's not much point in repeating them here. Likewise the guidelines for connecting your pages to the database that drives them, which is Access97 in the tutorial but might be SQLServer or other options for real projects. You'll need to set up a DSN (Data Source Name) which can be done through ODBC accessed either via Control Panels or directly through UltraDev.

Once these one-off configurations are done, you can move on to defining the data you're intending to pull from the database into your pages - your recordsets.

ASP using Dreamweaver UltraDev and PWS
ASP using Dreamweaver UltraDev and PWS
Recordsets and Data - Page 3