Next, we create a data access page using the Page wizard which brings the screen shown in Figure 18. You
can choose to display the fields (columns) you want by clicking on the single
arrow [>] to transfer the columns you desire one-by-one, or use double
arrows [>>] to transfer all available fields to the right pane. This is
a standard selection UI in Microsoft Products.
Figure 18
When you click on the Next> button
in Figure 18 you will see the next window of Page Wizard
shown in Figure 19 where you add the grouping levels on the fields. As you can
see, the Country_Name is the first grouping level
followed by the sub-level City under it.
Figure 19
Clicking on the button Next>
takes you to the window Grouping Intervals in Figure 20
where you may want to choose some grouping interval for the group-level fields.
For example, if you were to choose 1st Letter for the Country_Name
field, your display will show only the first letter for the Country
Name. For this choice, both Canada and China will show up under the
letter "C."
Figure 20
When you click on the button OK
you will be taken to the next window of Page Wizard shown
in Figure 21. You will need to choose the sorting of the records. Again, this
is another standard UI for sorting. In the screen shot shown in Figure 21, the
Last_Name is chosen to be sorted in the ascending
order.
Figure 21
Clicking on the button Next>
takes you to the Page Wizard window shown in Figure 22
where you provide a name for the data access page's title. Here you have the
option of either opening the page as is or modifying the page's design with or
without applying a theme. If needed, you display Help
on working with this page. Here the option shown in Figure 21 is chosen.
Figure 22
When you click on the Finish button
in the window shown in Figure 22, the Data Access Page will open in design view
as shown in Figure 23 with default, Page 1: Data Access Page.
The grouping you chose has been faithfully represented in the design showing that
the wizard did a good job of implementing the information you provided to the
wizard.
Figure 23
For previewing the Data Access Page, it needs to be saved. You
may save from the menu item File by choosing the Save As drop-down menu. This brings up the window Save As shown in Figure 24. By default the page gets saved
to the My Documents folder in Windows XP
Professional. However, you need to provide a name. Here it is named OrcEmp.
Figure 24
When you click on the button OK in
the screen shown in Figure 24, the Save As Data Access Page
window will show up with My Documents in default for
the Save in: field.
Figure 25
Since this page is going to be hosted on the intranet site,
the C:\Inepub\wwwroot folder was chosen as the directory for the saved data
access page, OrcEmp.htm. This brings up the MS Access
message shown in Figure 26. If the button Yes is
clicked, the root directory will become the default for all Data Access Pages. In
this tutorial the option No was chosen.
Figure 26
This saves the file to the root directory. The orcEmp.htm finds
itself in the default website as shown in Figure 27. This file may now be
browsed from the intranet website, which in the present case is the localhost.
Figure 27
However, when you try to browse the data access page you may
get the following two warnings. Click on the button OK
on both the windows shown in Figure 28 and Figure 29. The first one deals with
the security regarding the data source and the second deals with access
permissions.
Figure 28
Figure 29
When you click on the button OK in
Figure 29, you will meet with the Oracle login page once again. You use the
same credentials used earlier.
Figure 30
Since you are authenticated, you will see the Data Access
Page OrcEmp.htm displayed on your browser at the
address http://localhost/OrcEmp.htm.
The grouping levels have been fully expanded. Using the [-] sign they can be
collapsed.
Figure 31
The data access page is connected to the data through the
field list associated with it, shown in Figure 32. By highlighting and
right-clicking each of the fields (columns), their properties can be accessed. Changes
to the display format of the data access page can be accessed by clicking on
the controls in the design view of the page, shown in Figure 33.
Figure 32
In Figure 33, Country_Name was highlighted and the various
properties one could access are shown in the drop-down list. Page, Group_level,
section and element properties can be managed by the dialogs that ensue when
any of these options are chosen. It is also possible to call up the Microsoft
Script Editor, which can be used for dynamic interaction with the page through
the DHTML script support using the client objects and scripts.
Figure 33
Figure 34 shows some cosmetic changes applied to the screen (shown
in Figure 31) by accessing the Data Access Page's properties. The page's
heading has been modified, as well as some of the properties of the other
fields. While Data Access Pages can be modified at design time, as described
above, properties at run time can be modified using the scripting support
provided by the Microsoft Script Editor and the Visual Basic Editor built into
the data access page (see Reference link 2 in summary).
Figure 34
