Dreamweaver Database Integration?

[jferris1027]

Hello,

I am currently evaluating Dreamweaver as a potential solution for my e-commerce website, but have a few questions about functional capabilities:

1) Can I connect Dreamweaver to a SQL Sever database?

2) If so, does the functionality exist such that I can transact against the DB in real-time?  (E.g., allow for customer logins to be validated, customer activity to be tracked and written back, and customer requests such as order history to be provided)?

3) If so, any recommendation on hosting sites that will allow upload of the database in addition to the Dreamweaver files?

Thanks very much,

Jonathan

[Ben M · Accepted solution]

I don't think DW is the solution you are thinking it is or that you are looking for. Dreamweaver can allow you to program, or work with scripting for a database connection.  So yes, it can connect in that respect, but it is not intended to be a tool to manage your database.  The things you are asking about with custom activity tracking and order history are more for an ecommerce platform and reporting functionality which is part of an ecommerce software package or app and not an application like Dreamweaver which helps you code webpages yourself.

To that end, with your final question, hosting can really take place anywhere.  Dreamweaver files are html so any hosting account will work and most include databases, so there's really not a recommendation.  What you need to look at are things like location, availability, bandwidth, server resources, etc. To answer that you need to know things like the traffic, where it is coming from, etc.

So in short, Dreamweaver doesn't sound like the solution you need at the moment and something like Magento ( https://magento.com ) is more what you need.  Or there are other solutions, but it will depend on what you are trying to sell and to whom and volume of the traffic to estimate your bandwidth.

[jferris1027]

Thank you very much for the information.  I will look into your recommendations.

Best,

Jonathan

[BenPleysier]

To give you a slightly different view, you could use Dreamweaver with an extension called eCart. This is the solution that I have used on many an occasion.

[Nancy OShea]

Both Bens are correct.  You need a 3rd party PCI compliant shopping cart.

DW is just a glorified code editor not a MySQL data manager like Navicat.