<input type="Submit" name="-Add" value="Add Record">
Custom web database publishing with WebSTAR Lasso Publisher gives you complete control of your database's web interface. You can create web pages that display information from your database, allow users to search the database, and allow users to create new database records. Using LDML tags in your HTML web pages, you have complete control over the look and functionality of your database's web interface, freeing you from the predetermined functions of Lasso Instant Web Database Publishing.
LDML is a group of tags that, when embedded in your HTML documents, allow database information to be dynamically displayed. LDML tags can also send commands to WebSTAR Lasso Publisher to do things like creating new database records using information entered into a form on a web page.
LDML is an entire "Markup" language, so this chapter will just provide an introduction.
WebSTAR Lasso Publisher includes the LDML 3.5 Reference Database , which contains every LDML tag with a description of each one and many usage examples. You'll find it extremely helpful to have this database open to refer to while you're developing your Lasso solutions. The WebSTAR installer automatically installs the LDML 3.5 Reference Database into the Documentation folder.
An action tag sends an instruction to the database requesting that a certain action be taken. Things like adding a record and searching are actions. In LDML, actions are be proceeded by a - (dash). In this example:
the -Add action takes the form of a Submit button that directs the database to add a new record using the data in that form.
Command tags contain parameters for an associated action. For example, the -Add tag above is useless if you haven't told Lasso which database the record should be added to. So somewhere in the same form as our -Add example above should be a command like this:
Using the -Database command tag, Lasso now knows which database the new record should be added to.
Substitution tags act as place holders in your documents where information from a database is filled in. The most common substitution tag you'll encounter is the [Field] tag. In a Lasso format file, the tag [Field: 'Artist'] is replaced with the actual data from the database field named "Artist" in the database, when the page is sent to the web browser.
Container tags are pairs of tags in the traditional HTML <tag>...</tag> style. LDML container tags, however, use square brackets. One example is [If]...[/If] where conditional statements can be used to show different results in different situations.
Like any language, LDML has some specific syntax rules that must be adhered to. Action and command tags are always proceeded by a - (dash.) Substitution and Container tags appear inside square brackets. Values that appear inside a tag must be inside single quotes. These are just three of the most commonly encountered syntax rules. For a complete list, open the LDML 3.5 Reference Database and click on the Tag Info button.
Use FM Link to avoid typographical errors in your LDML code. When layout and field names appear in LDML, they must exactly match their database spellings. If you use FM Link when writing LDML tags, you avoid spelling and syntax errors. Because FM Link communicates directly with your database to obtain layout and field names, you can be confident that your LDML tags are error free.