The Form Data Tool

Tutorial created by Ray Borduin, WebAssist

Categories: Data Bridge, Design Extender, Free Tools

3 ratings | Sign in to rate this tutorial | View comments

next section

What you need to start

1. A dynamic site set up within Dreamweaver
   
2. Dreamweaver CS4 or later
   
3. Free Tools installed and activated in Dreamweaver
   
4. Data Bridge installed and activated in Dreamweaver

next section

Create a form page

We're going to use the scrumptious CSS Form Builder tool found within our primo extension called Data Bridge. If you don't have Data Bridge; why not? I'll wait here while you go buy it. Or you could always make yourself a custom form.

1. Create a PHP page called form.php
   
2. Create a PHP page called results.php
   
   
   
   
   These pages will be used for our form and results page. You can name them whatever you want, just remember to change the steps to use the names you chose
   
   
3. Open the form.php page
   
4. Click WebAssist > Forms > Insert New Form
   
5. Select Contact as the Form Type
   
6. Select Simple Contact as the sub-type
   
7. Click the Browse button for Specify the action page
   
8. Select the results.php page
   
   
   
   
9. Click Finish
   
10. Save Everything!

Now you have your beautiful lil' form, we're going to need to bust out some Form Data.

1. Open the results.php page
   
2. Click Window > Bindings to make sure your Bindings panel is available
   
3. Click the New Binding ( ) button
   
4. Select Form Data
   
   

Now we need to set up our Form Data instance

1. Click the Browse button
   
2. Select the form.php
   
3. Click OK
   
4. Click OK again

You'll notice bindings with all the names of the form elements on the form.php page have been created. let's go ahead and show some of the data on the results.php page so you can see it working

1. With the results.php page still open, click and drag the Full_Name binding from the Bindings panel onto your page
   
2. After the php code, add a page break
   
3. Now drag the Email_Address binding onto the page after the page break
   
4. Save all of your pages!

This is going to show the name and email people enter into the form.

1. Preview your form.php page
   
2. Enter all the required information into the fields on the page
   
3. Click Submit
   
4. Notice the Name and email address show on the results.php page

Well done! It was a quick and simple little tutorial, and you handled it like a champ.

What to do next...

The end. How was that fairy tale ending? The hero won the day, the bindings were made easily, and no one got hurt. This should probably get animated into a children's movie.

Now you're ready to take Form Data and add it to your own sites. Go ahead, save yourself from loads of extra work. You deserve it

Reviews and comments

Comments will be sent to the author of this tutorial and may not be answered immediately. For general help from WebAssist, please visit technical support.

3 ratings | Sign in to rate this tutorial