Hello Imar and everyone else!

I use Dreamweaver´s ability to insert and update (memo) fields to/from an Access 2003 database successfully.

My problem: the user would like to put some words in bold (like I did here) or in color (2 or 3 options) , the text must be updated in Access with "something" to make it "remember" its characteristics. Then, when the text is extracted from the db to be seen in his monitor, from a recordset, the user should see the same words in bold and/or different colors.

Got the picture? Please give hints on how to proceed.

When the user clicks an image with "bold" written in it, should I put "[ " b "]" before and "[" / b "]" after the word? When this is saved and retrieved, will the Dreaweaver asp-page understand what this means and show it in bold characters? Is this the path to the solution?

Thanks a lot,
fskilnik

I don't think Dreamweaver has much to do with this.

What you're describing here is a common Content Management System (CMS) requirement. To offer the user the ability to format text, a few solutions are available. One is to use UBB code which is used on this Wrox site. Users enter stuff like "[" b "]" in a text area (possibly through a tool bar) and when the page is displayed, some replacement code (using Regular Expressions for example) replaces the UBB tags with proper HTML tags.

Another alternative is to offer your users a WYSIWYG editor. One editor I like a lot is the FCKeditor at www.fckeditor.com . This editor stores HTML in a hidden field which can then be stored in the database or displayed on another page. Note that the actual HTML is then stored in a database....

Since both the FCKeditor and this forum are released as open source, I suggest you check them out and see if you like them. The FCKeditor is really simple to implement in ASP pages. Don't know how easy it is to use the Snitz forum....

HtH,

Imar
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Imar Spaanjaars
Everyone is unique, except for me.

Hello, Imar! Thanks for the very quick reply.

>I don't think Dreamweaver has much to do with this.

Sorry for that. You´re 100% right, of course, but the possibility of receiving your expert advice is THE reason I´ve put the question here. (It worked :) !)

I have checked this FCKeditor. Simply great! Exactly what I needed. (More than that, to be honest.)

Great advice. Thanks a lot. I will try to put it to work for me.


Best regards,
fskilnik.

You're welcome...

Imar
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Imar Spaanjaars
Everyone is unique, except for me.

Hi there, Imar!

FCKeditor feedback: VERY GOOD product, no doubt! With very little (ASP) coding I could put it to work for me. Really impressive. Great experience. Thanks a lot for the suggestion.

Cheers,
Fábio.

Great. I am glad you like it.

Ever since I discovered it, I have been using it in all my projects that needed an editor, including some of the chapters in my upcoming book.

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Imar Spaanjaars
Everyone is unique, except for me.
While typing this post, I was listening to: When It Comes by Incubus (Track 5 from the album: Make Yourself) What's This?

Nice to hear that, Imar!

By the way... please tell us (your grateful readers) something about it: title, content, etc.

I guess I will not be the only serious candidate for buying it, for sure! :)

Best regards and all the best with this new book,
Fábio.


Obs.: for other readers of this forum: if you don´t know Imar´s (et al) "Beginning Dreamweaver MX 2004" wrox book (ISBN 7645-5524-3) , you didn´t have the opportunity to see "a master in his trade". There are 3 projects there, the first one very simple but important as first "basic" contact with the whole suite, the second one simply EXCELLENT (yes, done by our dear Mr. Imar Spaanjaars himself!) and the third, well, to be honest, I never started it.

It seems to me that all the real stuff is in the second project and, frankly, Imar´s ability to mix Dreamweaver´s automatically smart (but long and too abstract) coding creation with his hands-on "write-your-own" ASP and Javascripts parts is really amazing. Now I feel more than confident to stop "leaving" for Dreamweaver the "hard stuff" (coding) and doing it myself (with one or two ASP and ASP.NET aditional books for support, sure).

P.S.1: yes, I know this is propaganda to Imar´s present (and perhaps future book) and... he deserves it.

P.S.2: yes, I am grateful for many EXPERT advice, corrections and helps he had already given me, absolutely for free, as he does for all of you, other readers. But... his book is great without taking this into account. Period.

P.S.3: I don´t have any sort of money agreements with him. No, I am not gay, neither. (Laugh) I am 35 years, married, two kids and lived long enough to buy many stupid books, from authors that give only silly cookbook-recipes as their readers couldn´t think for themselves. Imar respect his readers. I respect him.

P.S.4: you owe me a cup of coffee after all this, Imar. Ok?! ;)

*** is blushing *** ;)

Since a few days, the book is up at the Wrox site, and is now located here: http://www.wrox.com/WileyCDA/WroxTit...471749516.html

It should be out by March 20 (according to Amazon, that is...)

Imar
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Imar Spaanjaars
Everyone is unique, except for me.

Great, Imar. Thanks!

Regards,
fskilnik