Web Based Ill Forms... -Reply

[Mark Ellis]

Dan wrote:

> We're working on getting the forms (currently on a draft page
> on our intranet, not visible outside of library) to do that.  But,
> we aren't there yet, and none of us are very CGI/Perl/etc
> experienced. We will be getting the content put directly into
> Access97, the database that is becoming library and campus
> standard.
>
> Any comments, input, suggestions, URLs, etc, appreciated.
> Hope all will reply to list.  And now I'm off to check the
> web4lib pages at Berkeley.
>

Most of the solutions to this involve CGI apps that communicate with Access
or other databases via ODBC.  If you're running your server on NT there are
template based products like Cold Fusion (http://www.allaire.com/) that
help you avoid programming--apart from SQL.

If you need more flexibility than this you can use Perl, Visual Basic,
C/C++, Java etc. to work with ODBC data sources.

I use Perl on NT in conjunction with the Win32::ODBC module.
(http://www.roth.net/odbc/)

If you're running a Mac server you can use Tango
(http://www.everyware.com/products/tango/) as a gateway to FileMaker
databases and ODBC data sources (including Access).  Tango also runs on
some Unix platforms.

On Unix, in addition to Tango, there's also Perl DBI and probably many
other products I'm not aware of.

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Mark Ellis
Computer Services Technician            Phone: 604.231.6410
Richmond Public Library                 Email: mark.ellis at rpl.richmond.bc.ca
Richmond, British Columbia
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