Tutorial: Address Book

This sample application shows you how to use Remote Data Service to build a simple, data-aware Web application—an online corporate address book. This tutorial is useful for Microsoft^® Visual Basic^®, Scripting Edition (VBScript) and ActiveX^® programmers who want to learn how to use data-aware ActiveX controls with Remote Data Service, and for more experienced application developers who want to build data-centric Web applications.

This tutorial assumes you know how to use basic HTML layout tags and program with ActiveX controls.

The Address Book tutorial lessons will guide you through:

• Making sure you meet the system requirements to run this application.
  
  
• Setting up the environment to connect to a database, and running an SQL query to copy the sample data.
  
  
• Setting up the HTML framework on the Web page, and writing VBScript code to handle user events.

Introduction to Address Book

The Address Book sample application is an online address book that you can use to publish a directory over an intranet. The address book is designed so that a user can enter a search string in one or more fields to request information about employees. To show you the basic features of Remote Data Service, the sample application is intentionally kept small, with a minimum number of objects and search fields.

The application front end consists of the following parts:

• Text boxes that act as search fields for different kinds of information about an employee.
  
  
• Command buttons to build queries, clear search fields, update the database with employee information, or cancel pending changes.
  
  
• A spreadsheet-like grid that displays the search results and is bound to a back-end database through a nonvisual RDS.DataControl data-binding object.
  
  
• Buttons that let you navigate the rows of data displayed in the grid.