Getting Setup for External Access
Here's how to embed the projects database display so that it looks like it's part of your own site:
I hope this text isn't confusing. I tried to cover all the bases and in doing so, may be providing more information than you care about. It's probably good to read the whole thing but feel free to skip over the parts you don't feel you need. For those of you who would like to just look at the sample links, you can skip straight to the end of this message. I've provided fully functioning java and simple link methods there.
NOTE!!! If you don't care about any of the following stuff and just want to get started by having a live example that you can simply cut-n-paste directly into your own web page, click here --> SAMPLE PAGE then, Right click on the page and choose View Source.
If you implement this interface, please add yourself to the mailing list on the front page. Additions and modifications to the interface will be announced to this mailing list, as well as major site changes.
First, on the page that you are going to provide the links back to the website, add the following code to the Head section on that page. (After the <head> tag but before the</head>)
The above is the recommended way of accessing and will be the easiest to implement. Here's why...
Once you've put that in the head section of your page, all you have to do to call a category is like this:
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<a href="javascript:OpenProj('Category','Info-Engine','False');">Information - Engine</a> Which looks like this: |
There will be a complete example of all these towards the end of this document. If you don't want to use Java, let's start off with the simplest way to access it. The following is for your site if you are using frames, and your main window is called "main".
Which looks like this: |
The target="main" codes is what specifies where the content of the page will go. In this case, I'm assuming your primary area has been named "main".
I won't go into a great deal of detail on these since you obviously already have a great website up and running for your members. You're welcome to skip straight to the bottom where the samples are if you like.
The third and final way, if you don't want to mess with any of this above, you're welcome to just make a direct link to my project select page with something like this line:
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<a href="http://www.projecttransam.com/projectselect.asp">Info/Installs/Fixes Guides</a>
Which Looks like this: |
The other versions below are for those who want to make this all look like it's a part of their own site instead of someone
elses.
THE LONG-WINDED VERSION
Ok.... To help those of you who want to dig deep into it, please allow me to present you with a little background on what's happening when you call this page. (Which is a server-side script composed of VBScript and Java.) Then I'll give you all the parameters and possibilities: (I'm providing this cause I know some of you are hard-core web designers and programmers too. You can skip this section if you don't care about knowing how I set all this junk up.)
The page you are calling up, (ProjectDisplayExternal.asp) is a little different then my regular project display page. You might have noticed a few slight differences if you visited my page. In the external page, I've stripped out all theme cascading style sheets, and most all the header information including backgrounds, etc. I've made it as generic as possible so that it'll display correctly for everyone, and should embed more easily. I did provide a couple css overrides to get rid of that crappy link underline. (I hate that!)
As you noticed, this page currently takes two parameters when you call it that specify what content to return. They are "Type" and "Value".
The TYPE parameter is actually the name of the field within the database. For example, "Category" is actually a field name. So "?Type=Category" tells the script page to look in the Category field.
The VALUE parameter you have probably already guessed, is the contents of the field, or the data contained within it.
These are static so they don't change. When the user submits a new project into the database, he chooses a category from a selection box and that's what get's entered into the database.
Now, having said all that, here's a list of all the Fields that you can query on:
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I marked an asterisk by the fields with the most meaningful information to build your links upon. At least these are the main ones that I'm using. Some of the others may be hard to query on unless you know specifically what you are looking for. The ones marked with the asterisk are also static and I can guarantee their contents. The others are fields the user can enter.
Here's a list of 4 static fields and their contents:
CarType
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EngineType
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Category
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Description
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Special Values
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Above in "Category", I've provided the Category field entry on the left, as well as what the user sees on the right. The stuff on the right is not stored and is simply what I used to describe the category to the user. (Yours can vary if you like) :-)
Please remember that on the CarType queries, you'll need to add a "+" where there is a space, and the hex plus (%2B) where there is a plus on the first entry. I'll illustrate in the "short" version up next.
THE SHORT VERSION
Here's the FULL sample links below. You don't have to change these if you don't want to, they will work as is...
You can View Source on this page to get the links, or cut and paste below to a
NotePad file first, then into your editor.
Simple Link Method:
Here's the Java Version by using the java code in the head portion of your web page (Shown at the top):
Feel free to cut-n-paste these directly from above or change them to suit your needs.
In my opinion, the Java stuff is much cleaner and easier to keep up with. You're welcome to set this up any way you choose though, it's your web site. I'm just providing the actual database data to your site.
If I do add some more parameters, which is likely, (like a search feature) they will be optional and won't affect your calling interface as it is. You can choose to, or not to, implement the new features as you see fit.
If you implement this interface, please add yourself to the mailing list on the
front page. Additions and modifications to the interface will be announced to
the mailing list.
And finally, to make a long and boring e-mail even longer... (haha) a little background on myself so I won't be such a stranger to you all. I work for, and am the Network Administrator for, a fortune 500 company. We are the Nation's leading data processing company of Medical claims and credit cards. We process billions of dollars worth of claims at our facility alone. We also write all our own software to do this. And although my job description does not entail programming, I have been a programmer for over 10 years. I also write our facility's intraweb pages which makes heavy utilization of an Oracle server on the back end running on a Unix system. These here are my personal home pages, and I do this in my spare time. I view it as practice to hone my skills in the web world. As I gain in technical skill, my pages will probably become more complex and a little richer in content. I'm also a die-hard fan of the F-body and devote a lot of time to it. It gets my mind off of work. haha. I also have a marketing background but that's neither here nor there. I hope to meet some of you folks at the f-body gatherings when time permits me to go. So there you have it! One heck of a long message! I hope you enjoy all this as much as I do.
-Kelly Drown
