This document provides a step-by-step guide to creating an event registration application using PHP and MySQL, including prerequisites and database schema details. It outlines how to build three key pages: presentations.php, register.php, and confirm_register.php, detailing the setup of dynamic content and user interactions. The document emphasizes setting up the database connection in Dreamweaver and binding dynamic data to enhance user experience in event registration.

1. Creating an event registration application in PHP - Part 1: Building
the front end
Requirements
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 also
need 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 learn
how 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 page
dynamically 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 the
MySQL 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 set
up 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 tables
come 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 for
event registration.
The presentations table maintains information for the various sessions held during the event. The presentations table includes data columns for
storing 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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2. 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 event
name are included. You could and probably would require a much more robust set of data columns for an actual application, but this structure should
give 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 server
through 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:
1. Choose Window > Databases.
2. Click Add (+) and choose MySQL Connection from the menu.
3. 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, enter
localhost.
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.
Figure 2. The Dreamweaver database connection
4. Click Test to verify the connection and then OK if the connection is successful.
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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3. 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 the
presentations 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 a
single day. A URL parameter is used to create the filter.
1. Choose File > Open. When the Open dialog box appears, navigate to the event_reg subfolder of the sample files folder and open
presentations.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 to
create a recordset.
2. From the Bindings panel, choose Add (+) and select Recordset from the list.
3. 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 (for
example, rsPresentations).
4. Choose your data source connection from the Connection list; mine is called connEventReg.
5. Select the table from the Table list, like presentations.
6. Leave all the columns selected.
For your own application, you can, of course, limit the data columns to just those used.
7. Set the filter to the following setting:
PresentDay: =
URL Parameter: PresentDay
8. 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 are
displayed when the page loads initially, you'll need to change the default value of the URL parameter in the Advanced Recordset interface.
Figure 3. Establishing the recordset
9. Switch to Advanced.
10. 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 the
dialog box.
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4. Figure 4. Setting up the proper default value
11. Click OK once more to close the Recordset dialog box.
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 only
tricky part is formatting the date and time properly; to accomplish this, you'll need to add a bit of hand coding to the page.
1. From the Bindings panel, expand the Recordset (rsPresentations) entry so you can see all the available data columns (see Figure 5).
Figure 5. Available data columns
2. 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.
3. Select the placeholder letter [Presentation name] in the main heading. From the Bindings panel, choose PresentName and click Insert (see
Figure 6).
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5. Figure 6. Binding dynamic data to the page
4. Repeat step 3 with the remaining placeholder text elements:
[Short Description]: PresentDescShort
[Date and time]: PresentDate
[Speaker Name]: PresentSpeaker
[Full Description]: PresentDescFull
5. At this point you can make the image dynamic. Double-click the placeholder image; when the Select Image Source dialog box appears, choose
the Data Sources option. From the Field list, choose PresentPic. In the URL field, prepend the code with the following path: images/. Click OK
to confirm your choices.
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.
6. Select the dynamic data {rsPresentations.PresentDate} and switch to Code view. Change the selected code to include the following sections in
red:
<?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 to
the recordset row: date() and strtotime(). The innermost function, strtotime(), converts the string stored in the database to a time format that
PHP 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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6. Saturday, March 1, 2008, 9:00 am. For more information about date and time formatting, see the PHP online manual.
7. The next step is to set up the Day 1 and Day 2 links. Select the text Day 1 and, in the Property inspector, enter
presentations.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 the
recordset.
8. Choose File > Save.
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 the
recordset.
1. 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 be
given its proper weight. You could, of course, enclose everything in a <div> tag and handle the separation through CSS.
2. From the Server Behaviors panel, click Add (+) and choose Repeat Region from the list.
3. 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.
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7. Figure 9. Setting up a repeat region
4. Choose File > Save.
5. 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's
sessions (see Figure 10).
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.
1. 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 notice
that they are named the same as the corresponding data columns in the registrants table. There's even a hidden form element called RegEvent
with the value for this event, Realty Conference. The key action now is to add the Insert Record server behavior.
2. From the Server Behaviors panel, click Add (+) and choose Insert Record from the list.
3. 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.
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8. 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 the
assignments (see Figure 11).
Figure 11. Setting up the Insert Record server behavior
4. 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!
Figure 12. The registration page is complete
5. Choose File > Save.
6. 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 like
phpMyAdmin or MySQL Query Browser to verify the data has been added properly.
The confirm_registration page is a simple "thank you" page that informs the registrant that his information has been received. Your basic event
registration application is now complete.
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