Hi,
I have recently finished a kiosk installation which is integrated with a web
site based database. Initially the whole thing was set up to work with Sql
Server, but this had to be scaled down to Access 2000 due to the clients
budget.
I coded a number of behaviors which could be used to build a property list
and then added the list as a paramater to a postnettext operation. ASP was
used to interrogate the database and pass the results back to the projector.
In some case the results were passed back as a table and in others a pure
text stream was given as I wanted to use a different display format.
The beauty of the whole operation is that when the client updates their
website database, they don't have to duplicate the effort for the kiosks -
it's already done. I am also due to implement a backup system in the event
of the web site being unavailable - after a timeout the kiosk will switch to
a local server on a network (in this case one of the actual 3 kiosks). The
only 'downside' is that a copy of the web database has to be sent via ftp to
the kiosk server. Personal web server is fine assuming Windows NT
workstation - but if required this could be upgraded to Windows 2000 server
if there were dozens of kiosks. From a development point of view, it enables
both the programmers and the creatives to be working simultaneously on the
project, which is not yet possible with a director movie (are you listening
Macromedia???)
In terms of capacity, that really depends on the database, choice of
connection (i.e. old db versus odbc), and speed of the server, and speed of
the connection to the web. It could also be argued that one server based
technology is faster than others (I'll not get into that argument here!) -
but the methodology can be easily ported to other platforms if required.
The beauty of the sysem I have put together is that the projector doesn't
care how you get the data and what is used on whatever server setup as long
as it can get a pre-structured text stream or table based reply.
Director was the tool of choice because of the fact that the kiosks featured
quite a bit of quicktime, 3d, graphics etc which also incorporated sound
tracks etc etc. The entire code engine for the entire kiosk operation
(including the database stuff) was a measily 44k - all fully customizable
with re-usable behaviors and parent/child scripting. The server based code
(vb script) was something in the region of 6k - hardly anything to get
worked up about.
If you need any more advice or assistance, then please contact me off list.
Leo McCavana
>From: Marc Pidoux <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Subject: <lingo-l> Best way to connect to a SQL Database?
>Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 09:51:40 +0100
>
>I have a window projector installed on a computer and need to connect to
>a SQL database and bring back the result into this projector.
>
>What is the best way to do it? What is the best Xtra?
>
>The total of simultanous connections must be as high as possible for a
>still reasonable price...
>
>Thanks
>
>Marc
>
>
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