Working db offline
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Category: General Discussion
Forum Name: Database Discussion
Forum Description: Discussion and chat on database related topics.
URL: https://forums.webwiz.net/forum_posts.asp?TID=28451
Printed Date: 28 March 2026 at 9:01am
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Topic: Working db offline
Posted By: Duffy
Subject: Working db offline
Date Posted: 26 March 2010 at 9:23am
| Am doing school project. I have a relational Access 2002-2003 DB linked to a FrontPage 2003 website. To do queries and mail merge on my form results I have created another DB which I exporrt the form results to. I am told however that instead I must 'drag' my database offline to perform queries etc. Can someone tell me exactly how I do this please? |
Replies:
Posted By: dpyers
Date Posted: 26 March 2010 at 12:44pm
|
With FP, you can publish the remote site to your local hard drive. Just make sure the db's are selected for publication. The other way would be to use an ftp program to copy the db/db's to your local drive. Once on the local drive, you'd use MSAccess for queries and I'd assume Word and/or Outlook for the mail merge. ------------- 
Lead me not into temptation... I know the short cut, follow me. |
Posted By: Duffy
Date Posted: 26 March 2010 at 1:18pm
|
At last! Someone who knows what I mean! What way exactly (for newbie) would I use an ftp program to copy the db to my hard drive? |
Posted By: WebWiz-Bruce
Date Posted: 26 March 2010 at 1:25pm
|
With an FTP program you connect to your remote webspace, you then have two windows in the FTP program, one your local harddrive the other your remote web space. You simply drag and drop the files from one window to the other to upload and download the files. FileZilla is a free FTP Client that you can use for FTP purposes http://filezilla-project.org/ ------------- https://www.webwiz.net/web-wiz-forums/forum-hosting.htm" rel="nofollow - Web Wiz Forums Hosting https://www.webwiz.net/web-hosting/windows-web-hosting.htm" rel="nofollow - ASP.NET Web Hosting |
Posted By: Duffy
Date Posted: 26 March 2010 at 1:29pm
| Thanks a million! Will give it a go |
Posted By: Duffy
Date Posted: 26 March 2010 at 1:46pm
| Sorry - just had a thought - probably stupid. Does this mean I only ever publish the db from remote to local and not the other way around? Otherwise if I republished local to remote would I overwrite any new data that had been submitted while I was working offline? |
Posted By: dpyers
Date Posted: 26 March 2010 at 1:56pm
|
Copying the file to your local drive with ftp gives you a backup copy to work with. But like cats, there's more ways to skin this. If you open the remote site with fp, you can right-click the .mdb file and select Open With... to open it with your MS Access desktop program. Similarly, you can just open the remote db directly from access by selecting Open - My Network Places and entering something like ftp://mysite.com/mydb.mdb" rel="nofollow - ftp://mysite.com/mydb.mdb . You'll be prompted for your site login and password. The problem of course with these two methods is that you're playing with your primary db, not a local back up. But once open in access, you can select "save As..." and save it locally. Finally, you could also just write a query to run on the web site to dump the db to a comma-delimited file, then ftp the file or right-click on it to "Save As". The file can be used to create a new MS Access db or fed directly into a Word mail merge. -------------
Lead me not into temptation... I know the short cut, follow me. |
Posted By: dpyers
Date Posted: 26 March 2010 at 2:52pm
Correct. There's a way on the publish page to exclude particular files/folders from being published. When going local to remote, you don't want to publish the db because you'll overwrite the updated remote. When publishing from remote to local however, you will want to publish the db to get a backup of it. You may however not want to publish things like log files for web stats to your local PC as a year of log files can take up a lot of time to publish. -------------
Lead me not into temptation... I know the short cut, follow me. |
Duffy wrote:Posted By: Duffy
Date Posted: 26 March 2010 at 4:19pm
|
I'm probably making life difficult for myself here, but then really the remote database is only of use for the one table that will be collecting the form results as everything else I do on the local db will never get published then? I was told I had to 'drag it offline' then do the mail merge then drag back online (which I would have thought would overwrite the new form results). The whole problem is that this is coursework and the specification says the web site has to be linked to a relational database. Well mine is, but teacher is insisting on this dragging offline (to desktop and opening with Access I think) business. Can't ask her to explain as school now closed for two weeks and I have only just realised all the problems this might entail. My idea was to export the table from the database on the remote site to a table in my local db (say table A) and copy the contents into another table (table B) where I could do queries etc, then each time I exported the data again, it wouldn't matter that it was overwriting table A as the data would then be stored in table B. This would mean that only the db on the local site would be up to date but I can't see any other way round it. Sorry for rabbiting on but you are the first person who has grasped my problem and knows what you are talking about. Thanks!! |
Posted By: dpyers
Date Posted: 26 March 2010 at 4:50pm
|
Frankly, I think the easiest thing for you to do in this situation would be to crate a page that contains a link to the online data base. Call up the page, and right-click the link to select "Save As". It's not particularly safe and secure, but for classroom purposes, it'll get a copy to your local drive with a minimum of hassle. Once there, you can open it with access and have your way with it in whatever manner the instructor prefers. EDIT: Because my damn keyboard keys are sticking - don't ask! -------------
Lead me not into temptation... I know the short cut, follow me. |
Posted By: WebWiz-Bruce
Date Posted: 26 March 2010 at 4:57pm
|
Why are you using Access and Frontpage anyway? Is your teacher still stuck in the 1990's? Seems like a bit of a waste of time learning things which are out of date or in the case of Frontpage have been issued with an End Of Life with FP Extensions no longer working at all in Windows 2008 R2.
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Posted By: Duffy
Date Posted: 26 March 2010 at 6:28pm
|
Thanks to both of you! Re FP and Access - couldn't agree with you more!! They are sooo out of date but school wont stump up for new software. If I never see either of then again it will be too soon. |