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Master/Detail Pages

Inserting a Master/Detail Page Set

In the last section, you learned how to use the Go To Detail Page server behavior to move from a record on one page to another page containing detail information for that record. Dreamweaver can naturally automatically this task, as well, by creating master/detail page sets. The master page typically contains a list of records, and the detail page contains fields linked to whichever record is clicked.

To create a master/detail page set:

1. Start with a new, blank page that will function as the master, or list, page. For this example, we’re again going to use our client list, but we’ve deleted everything on it so it’s now blank.
2. Add a recordset containing the data you want to list and the data you want to appear on the detail page. On our list page, we’re going to display our clients’ names, and on our detail page, we’re going to display detailed information for the selected client. All this information is contained in the Clients table of our database:

3. From the Insert menu, select Application Objects, and then Master Detail Page Set.

This opens the Insert Master-Detail Page Set dialog:

4. Confirm that the correct recordset is selected.
5. The first section of the dialog deals with the master page, the second section the detail page. In the first selection, remove all the fields that you don’t want to appear in your list by selecting each in turn and clicking the minus button next to Master page fields. For our client list, we only want to display the contact name.
6. Select which field you want to contain the hyperlink to the detail page for each record. Since we’re only listing contact names, this is what we’ll select (the ContactName field). Dreamweaver will add a hyperlink to each name in the list, linking it to the detail page.
7. Select the unique key that identifies each record. Even though the name of our clients will be linked to the detail page, the value of the primary key, the ClientID field, will be passed to the detail page, so the correct record is displayed.
8. Select how many records to show in the list at once.
9. Enter the name of the detail page. If you haven’t created one already, Dreamweaver will create it for you based on the name you enter here.
10. Remove any fields you don’t want to appear on the detail page.

When you’ve finished, the dialog should look something like this:

11. Click OK.