Creating an event registration application in PHP - Part 1: Buildingthe front endRequirements

Prerequisite knowledge

You'll need to know how to set up a dynamic site in Dreamweaver and also have PHP and MySQL set up on your development system. You'll alsoneed to understand how to restore a SQL file to a MySQL database.

User level

Intermediate

Meetings, conventions, and conferences are an important part of almost every profession. In recent years, attendee registration has moved to the Web.In this article you'll learn how to create a multipurpose catalog page that displays the different seminars for each day of the event. You'll also learnhow to create a basic event registration application in PHP using a basic Dreamweaver server behavior. This application consists of three pages:

Presentations.php: Before site visitors can decide which program to register for, they need to see what is offered on each day. This pagedynamically displays presentation information for each day of the event.Register.php: This page contains a basic form for gathering name and e-mail address from the registrant; it inserts a new record into theMySQL database. After the record is inserted the page is redirected to confirm_register.php.Confirm_register.php: A simple page that let's the registrant know the process is complete.

Getting started

Before you begin building the application, examine the database tables that are employed and also verify that the database connection is properly setup in Dreamweaver.

Note: It's a good idea to have your dynamic PHP site already set up at this point and have unpacked the sample files into the local root folder.

Understanding the database schema

The database that accompanies this article is a relatively simple one with three tables: presentations, registrants, and admin. Only the first two tablescome into play during this exercise; the admin table is used in conjunction with a related article that describes how to set up an administrative site forevent registration.

The presentations table maintains information for the various sessions held during the event. The presentations table includes data columns forstoring the presentation's name, a short description and a longer description (see Figure 1). There are also columns for the date and time of the talk,its duration and the day of the event (1, 2, 3, and so on) on which the presentation is given. Speaker details, such as name and file name for a picture,round out the table schema.

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Figure 1. The presentations database schema

In comparison, the registrants table has far fewer data columns. Only columns for the registrant's first name, last name, e-mail address, and eventname are included. You could and probably would require a much more robust set of data columns for an actual application, but this structure shouldgive you a good sense of the type of information you can gather.

The SQL file for the Subscriptions database is included in the sample files download, in the database folder. You can recreate it on your test serverthrough any number of utilities including phpMyAdmin, MySQL Control Center, or MySQL Administrator.

Making the database connection

After you've established your database, it's time to create a connection to it in Dreamweaver. To do so, follow these steps:

Choose Window > Databases.1.Click Add (+) and choose MySQL Connection from the menu.2.In the MySQL Connection dialog box appears, do the following (see Figure 2):

Enter the name of your new connection in the Connection name field (for example, connEventReg).Enter an IP address or MySQL server name in the MySQL server field. If you're working with a local development system, enterlocalhost.Insert your user name and password in the appropriate fields.Click Select to display the available databases; choose the one you want from the list.

3.

Figure 2. The Dreamweaver database connection

Click Test to verify the connection and then OK if the connection is successful.4.

With your PHP dynamic site, MySQL database, and Dreamweaver connection all established, you're ready to build the first page of the application.

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Displaying the event presentations

To help your registrants decide which days of your event to attend, you'll want to display the session details. This information is stored in thepresentations table of the database and can be called up dynamically. In this exercise, you'll create the necessary recordset, insert the dynamic data,and set up links to display what's happening on the various days.

Establishing the recordset

The first task is to add the recordset to the page. This recordset pulls data from the presentations table and is filtered to include only the sessions on asingle day. A URL parameter is used to create the filter.

Choose File > Open. When the Open dialog box appears, navigate to the event_reg subfolder of the sample files folder and openpresentations.php.

The presentations.php page has a few placeholders already set up to help guide you. Before you can take advantage of them, you'll need tocreate a recordset.

1.

From the Bindings panel, choose Add (+) and select Recordset from the list.2.When the Recordset dialog box opens, make sure you're in Simple mode and enter an appropriate name for the recordset in the Name field (forexample, rsPresentations).

3.

Choose your data source connection from the Connection list; mine is called connEventReg.4.Select the table from the Table list, like presentations.5.Leave all the columns selected.

For your own application, you can, of course, limit the data columns to just those used.

6.

Set the filter to the following setting:PresentDay: =URL Parameter: PresentDay

7.

From the Sort lists, choose PresentDate Ascending. Do not click OK just yet.

Although you've completed the Simple view of the recordset (see Figure 3), you're not quite done. To make sure that the first day's events aredisplayed when the page loads initially, you'll need to change the default value of the URL parameter in the Advanced Recordset interface.

8.

Figure 3. Establishing the recordset

Switch to Advanced.9.In the Variables section, click Edit. When the Edit Variables dialog box appears, change the Default value from -1 to 1. Click OK to close thedialog box.

10.

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Figure 4. Setting up the proper default value

Click OK once more to close the Recordset dialog box.11.

Now that the recordset is ready to go, you're all set to bind the dynamic data to the page.

Binding the data

Inserting the dynamic data to the page is pretty straightforward and made even simpler with the placeholder elements to show you the way. The onlytricky part is formatting the date and time properly; to accomplish this, you'll need to add a bit of hand coding to the page.

From the Bindings panel, expand the Recordset (rsPresentations) entry so you can see all the available data columns (see Figure 5).1.

Figure 5. Available data columns

Select the placeholder letter [X] in the main heading. From the Bindings panel, choose PresentDay and click Insert.

This action allows the page to indicate which day of the event is currently being displayed.

2.

Select the placeholder letter [Presentation name] in the main heading. From the Bindings panel, choose PresentName and click Insert (seeFigure 6).

3.

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Figure 6. Binding dynamic data to the page

Repeat step 3 with the remaining placeholder text elements:[Short Description]: PresentDescShort[Date and time]: PresentDate[Speaker Name]: PresentSpeaker[Full Description]: PresentDescFull

4.

At this point you can make the image dynamic. Double-click the placeholder image; when the Select Image Source dialog box appears, choosethe Data Sources option. From the Field list, choose PresentPic. In the URL field, prepend the code with the following path: images/. Click OKto confirm your choices.

5.

Figure 7. Specifying a dynamic image

Next, set up the proper date and time formatting. As I mentioned, this will require a bit of hand-coding.

Select the dynamic data {rsPresentations.PresentDate} and switch to Code view. Change the selected code to include the following sections inred:

6.

<?php echo date("l, F j, Y, g:i a", strtotime($row_rsPresentations['PresentDate'])); ?>

Dreamweaver does not provide a binding panel format for date and time with PHP, so you have to add it yourself. There are two functions applied tothe recordset row: date() and strtotime(). The innermost function, strtotime(), converts the string stored in the database to a time format thatPHP can manipulate. The date() function handles the formatting. At runtime, these single letter formatting codes will result in output like this:

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Saturday, March 1, 2008, 9:00 am. For more information about date and time formatting, see the PHP online manual.

The next step is to set up the Day 1 and Day 2 links. Select the text Day 1 and, in the Property inspector, enterpresentations.php?PresentDay=1 in the Link field. Next select Day 2 and enter presentations.php?PresentDay=2 in its Link field.

Here, each link is set to the current page with a different value for the URL parameter PresentDay, which, you'll recall, was used to filter therecordset.

7.

Choose File > Save.8.

The core of the dynamic information is all in place (see Figure 8).

Figure 8. All dynamic data is inserted

Next, you'll make sure you get all the data you need.

Repeating the records

At this point, the page would display a single record. For the final phase, you'll add a Repeat Region server behavior to display all the records in therecordset.

Select all the dynamic data from rsPresentations.PresentName through rsPresentations.PresentDescFull and include the paragraph following.

When you select the data to be repeated, you generally want to make sure to include a bit of space after the day so that each record will begiven its proper weight. You could, of course, enclose everything in a <div> tag and handle the separation through CSS.

1.

From the Server Behaviors panel, click Add (+) and choose Repeat Region from the list.2.When the Repeat Region dialog box appears, make sure that rsPresentations is displayed in the Recordset list and choose Show: All records(see Figure 9). Click OK.

3.

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Figure 9. Setting up a repeat region

Choose File > Save.4.To test your page, press F12 to preview in your testing server. After you've looked over the info, click the Day 2 link to review the second day'ssessions (see Figure 10).

5.

Figure 10. Previewing the page

Naturally, you can add as many days to your event listing as needed. Next, you'll create the registration page.

Creating the registration page

The registration page makes the most of the Dreamweaver Insert Record server behavior. A simple form is used to gather the needed information.

Choose File > Open. When the Open dialog box appears, navigate to the event_reg folder of the sample files folder and open register.php.

The register.php page already has the form and primary form elements in place. If you select any of the existing form elements, you'll noticethat they are named the same as the corresponding data columns in the registrants table. There's even a hidden form element called RegEventwith the value for this event, Realty Conference. The key action now is to add the Insert Record server behavior.

1.

From the Server Behaviors panel, click Add (+) and choose Insert Record from the list.2.When the Insert Record dialog box opens, do the following:

Make sure that the Submit values from list is set to form1, the name of the current form.From the Connection list, choose connEventReg.

3.

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From the Insert table list, choose registrants.

Because all the form elements have the same name as the data columns in the registrants table, Dreamweaver automatically makes theassignments (see Figure 11).

Figure 11. Setting up the Insert Record server behavior

Click Browse and choose confirm_register.php for the After inserting, go to option. Click OK.

Dreamweaver writes out the server side code indicating the entire form is now dynamic (see Figure 12) and you're good to go!

4.

Figure 12. The registration page is complete

Choose File > Save.5.To test your page, press F12 and enter data for a new registrant in your browser. You'll need to examine the database records using a tool likephpMyAdmin or MySQL Query Browser to verify the data has been added properly.

6.

The confirm_registration page is a simple "thank you" page that informs the registrant that his information has been received. Your basic eventregistration application is now complete.

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