Most of what ASP Express is and does can be broken down into three general pull-down menus:

Text Formatting
Inserting Items
Web Page

TEXT FORMATTING

I will probably skip Bold, Italics & Underline because, everyone who has a word processor on their computer, and anyone who has gotten this far, should know the functionality of these items. Suffice it to say that they are included in the Formatting Pull Down menu as well as the button bar on the main screen.

ALIGNMENT
The Left & Right alignments are in the form of :
<p align right> This is the paragraph </p>

The Center Alignment is the so-called 'Netscape Center':
<CENTER> This is the paragraph </CENTER>
ASP Express uses this version because it's the most consistent with what would be used on a printed page and a whole lot better looking on a web page. Most WYSIWIG editors on the market these days use the other way, but in reality, it looks a lot better the other way.(Editor's Opinion)

HEADER TAGS
Clicking on this pull down menu series, with a word or phrase highlighted, you can turn it into any one of the Heading sizes allowable in HTML.

FONT TAGS
After highlighting a text or phrase, you can either choose the font color, or the font size.
The font color selection brings up a normal Windows dialogue box from which you can use to choose the color you want for the font on the web page. The font color will also change on the text page you are creating, but this part is only for the time of creation. Once you save the file, close & re-open it, the color of the text will be the plain, old, normal, black color.

Clicking on the font size pull down menu series, with a text selection, you can change your selection into any one of the font sizes allowable in HTML.

Keep in mind that these provide their own Open Font tag and Close Font tag. Therefore, they are only to be used when only one font characteristic is to be used. If you want both the Font Size & Font Color changed on your selection, use the Font Format Assistant (next).

Font Format Assistant
This assistant is to be used when you want the color, the font face, and/or the font size changed on the same section of selected text. You can change any one of the properties, all of the properties, or any combination of the properties.

Line Breaks
There are two selections here - No Line Breaks and Full Line Breaks.
The No Line Breaks command is put around a text selection that you want un-broken on your web page.
The Full Line Break gives you a line break & clears it to the end of the line. This means that no graphics or anything else can go to the right of the Line Break, no matter what its own formatting is.

PREFORMATTED TEXT

SubScript & SuperScript
With subscript text, like the chemical formula for water, highlight the number '2' and choose Formatting/Subscript so that you will get : H₂0. In order to get 5-to the 10th power using Superscript, you would highlight the number '10' and choose Formatting/Superscript so that you will get: 5¹⁰.

COLOR TAGS
This is a neat little utility which allows you to isolate, or separate the HTML tags in your document so that you can see what your document is designed like more easily. Each separate HTML tag is either colored or bold-faced to separate from the regular text. Keep in mind that this colorization is not save-able. Once you close the file, the coloring is technicall lost. However, when you re-open the file, you can re-color the file if desired, for you convenience. This utility is available in the ASP Express menu bar as well as the formatting pull-down menu.

COMMENT
Clicking this command with your selected text will, in effect, hide your selection on the web page. It will make it a comment and not visible. This is very good for documentation of larger web pages. You can use comments, just like programmers do to, to separate sections of HTML code for easier navigation. This command is available in the formatting pull-down menu as well as the HTML Toolbar.

CLEAN UP TEXT
Most HTML coders know the exasperation of viewing an HTML source file once it has gone through a UNIX box or Macintosh, or whatever. When you pull up the page, there are no line breaks and a whole lot of garbage-type characters on the screen. This makes for a horrible time trying to figure out the source. Well, be exasperated no longer! This command will do just what it says - it will clean up that awful page full of text & put it into a more HTML-friendly format.

ANCHOR
This is also known as a 'Named Anchor' in HTML. It allows you to select text & make the selection a Named Anchor in your HTML document. This means that you can create a link to this anchor. You can either make it visible or invisible. An example of a good use for an invisible anchor would be to create a 'Top' anchor, like --
<A Name="top"><!--top--></A>
Simply put, what it does to create this invisible-ness is just to make it a comment. But it works just like an anchor in every way. If you wanted to use the highlighted text, say a heading, or a word, to be visible, just click in the Visible box. This command is available in the formatting pull-down menu as well as the HTML Toolbar.

LINK
The Link Dialogue box is a very widely useful tool, in my humble opinion. Not only does it allow you to type in the link (file or URL), but it allows you to browse for the file on your hard disk. If the file is in a directory other than the directory of the file you are creating, you will have to type that directory in. You can also specify a default directory, if needed in your preferences (under the File pull-down menu).
You can choose from three types of links:
HTTP
Named Anchor
None

If this is a link to another web site (http://www, etc), you will need to type in the www address & then click on the HTTP radio button. The program will automatically supply the 'HTTP://', as well as all the other link tag parts for you.

If this link is to a Named Anchor within this document, you can either type in the name of the anchor, or choose the anchor from a pull down list of all the Named Anchors on the page, and then click on the Named Anchor radio button. This provides all the appropriate HTML tag syntax for you.

Also, if you are creating a link which will be used in a frame, then, the optional 'Target Name' text box can be used to supply the name of the target frame in which you want it to appear.

And last but not least, if you click in the 'None' radio button, the default link, not referencing a named anchor or an external URL will be used.

As with most of the other items, the Link command is available in the formatting pull-down menu as well as the HTML Toolbar.

IMAGE
The default text input box is the 'Alternate Text' text box. Here, you will insert the text you want to appear when, in the unlikely event that someone views your page with a non-graphical browser. It also appears as a 'Tool-Tip' in some browsers when you run your mouse over the image. The Graphics Directory is where your graphic image resides. If you designate this in your Properties (Under the File pull-down menu), then it will always remain the same, but can be edited, if need be, on the fly. The alignment box is a pull-down menu of the available alignments for your graphic image.

As you will also see, you can designate your image as an Image Map & give it the URL of the Client side image map. Once you click on 'Select Picture', you can browse to anwhere your image is, select it and it will appear in the box in the lower portion of the dialogue box. The width & the height have been entered for you, so there will be no calculation necessary, unless you want to change the sizes. If you do not enter a number in the Border text box, then the default, Border=0 will be used.

Once all the data is exactly how you want it, just click the 'Apply button & the information will be transferred to your web page.

FORMS
For those who don't know, the actual functionality of a form, like saving the output to a text file, emailing it, adding it to a database, is done by adding another script of some kind to your pages (ASP, cgi, etc)

The Form Assistant are broken down into two 'screens because Forms can get a little complex. The two Assistants are the Basic Form Assistant and the Form Content Assistant. If you start with the Basic Form Assistant, then, you will automatically be placed in the Form Content Assistant to build your form.

The Form Assistant basically gives you the shell of a form. It allows you to set the Action the form is to make (URL - Like a ASP-CGI script or Email), and set the transfer method (POST or GET). Once you have completed the information needed in this screen, you get ---

The Form Content Assistant
This assistant provides the following components and their options:

Option List Item - gives you the following:
<OPTION>
This inserts items in the selection list

Default Option List Item - gives you the following:
<OPTION SELECTED>
This will be the default item selected in the selection list

FRAMES Assistant
Some of the best features of this program are the 'Assistants'. These are the dialogues - not wizards - which give you the choices you need to do a particular function within an HTML document. The Frames Assistant is one of these. This feature comes in handy because frames tend to sometimes be tedious and this lessens the burden of the design process. However, there still needs to be good planning ahead of time so that the data you enter into the Frame Assistant will be meaningful.

There are technically two sections to the Frames Assistant. The first one deals with Frames in general. This is where you choose the border color and size and the orientation of your frames on the HTML page. The border color & size are self-explanatory. The orientation means that you are choosing whether your main frames focus is in rows or columns.

The second section deals with the aspects or properties of the frames themselves. As you will notice, at the bottom, there are 4 numbered buttons. Each of the features you are going to choice in this section need to be made for each frame you design. Once you make your choices, you click on the corresponding frame number to 'save' your choices for that frame into memory. Keep in mind that if you make new choices and click the same number, you overwrite your first batch of choices.

Also, it's best to design your frames in order, 1 through 4 because it's usually easier to keep track, mentally, of what you are actually designing. The URL box allows you to either type in your html page for the frame, or browse your hard disk for it. The Subdirectory box is only necessary if the file you choose is not in the root directory where the main frames page is. It is totally optional. As any frame designer knows, you need a name for each frame to act as a target for links. The Name box is where you assign your fram a name. Next, you assign the percentage of the screen the current frame is to take. All that's left now is the Scroll and Frame Border boxes. In the Scroll box, you have three choices, Auto, Yes and No. In the Frame Border box, you only have two choice, Yes or No.

Once you have completed your choices for your first frame, click the '1' button to save your choices into memory. This will clear the text entry boxes and allow you to make new choice for your next frame. Repeat the above for each of the frames you are designing. Once you have selected all your frames choices, click. The 'Apply' button. This action will put all your information on your page. It will even put in a section (which you need to change) which, for people using a non-frames-enabled browser, will either tell them what you want, or give them an HTML page to view.

In the Insert Pull-Down Menu, you have many other Frames capabilities. They are as follows:
FrameSet With Rows - This allows you to add another frameset with rows
FrameSet With Columns - This allows you to add another frameset with columns (duh!)

New FrameSource - gives you the following:

<FRAME SRC="EnterURLHere" Name="name" Scrolling="yes">
Your job will be to replace "EnterURLHere" with the actual URL you will be using, the name you are assigning that FrameSource, and whether or not you want it to scroll.

Name - allows you to enter a name for your FrameSource
Target - allows you to enter "Target=" along with the name of the target
Attributes
Margin Width & Margin Height - these items do pretty much what they say they do. The Margin Width sets the left margin, horizontally (in pixels) and the Margin Height sets the top margin, in pixels, vertically.

No Resize - This gives you the no resize command for the particular frame it's in.
NoFrames Tag- This gives you the following:
<NOFRAMES>
<BODY>
This is where you put the message for those people who don 't have frames
</BODY> </NOFRAMES>

SPECIAL CHARACTERS
There are some items which require some 'special' handling so they show up correctly in an HTML document. For instance, if you wanted to actually print out a left bracket (<) or right bracket (>), since web browsers interpret the left bracket as the start of tag, these items need to be handled specially to do so. The ampersand is another example of this. The following items are 'Special Characters' and are able to be inserted from its submenu:
Non-Breaking Space
Ampersand
Trademark
Registered Trademark
Copyright Symbol
Left & Right Brackets

BASIC HTML Tags
Line Break, Paragraph & Horizontal Rule are the first three of these insertable HTML Tags. Also, sometimes, things happen so that you need to open or close the HTML, HEAD, TITLE, or BODY of an HTML Document. This menu item adds the open and close tags individually for these items when needed.

META Tags
Here you will find the most commonly inserted META tags, insertable within the open & close HEAD tags. They are:
Keywords
<META NAME="KEYWORDS" CONTENT="Keywords go here">
Here, 'Keywords go here' will be highlighted, ready for your input. It all will be put directly following your 'HEAD' tag. If you don't have one, you will be prompted that you need one in order for this feature to work.
Description
You will get the following:
<META NAME="DESCRIPTION" CONTENT="Enter_descriptive_text_here">
Here, 'Enter_descriptive_text_here' will be highlighted, ready for your input. It all will be put directly following your 'HEAD' tag. If you don't have one, you will be prompted that you need one in order for this feature to work.
Author
You will get the following:
<META NAME="AUTHOR" CONTENT="Author Goes Here">
Here, 'Author Goes Here' will be highlighted, ready for your input. It all will be put directly following your 'HEAD' tag. If you don't have one, you will be prompted that you need one in order for this feature to work.
Refresh
You will get the following:
<META HTTP-Equiv="Refresh" CONTENT="Time in Seconds Goes Here" URL="URL goes Here">
Here, 'Time in Seconds Goes Here' will be highlighted, ready for your input. You will also need to change the text that says, 'URL goes Here' to tell it which URL to change to. It all will be put directly following your 'HEAD' tag. If you don't have one, you will be prompted that you need one in order for this feature to work

TABLES
From the Insert Pull Down Menu and also from the HTML Toolbar, there are selections for :
Table Tag, Table Row & Table Cell<BR> These allow you to select text & put the open and close tags for Table, Row & Cell around the Text. This allows you to manually build a Table around text you already have. Since the text remains highlighted, you should start from the top of the Table Hierarchy and go down. That is to say, highlight the text and choose 'Table Tag' first. This puts the open & close tags around your text, but leaves it highlighted. Then, choose the Table Row selection, which also leaves the text highlighted so you can then choose the Table Cell selection. When you do, you will get some of the most common Table Attributes to choose for that Cell, including, Spacing, Padding, Width, Height, Color, etc.

The Table Assistant does things a little differently. Here you can create the Table with the amount of rows and cells you want and then insert the text or image inside the cells individually. One of the great features of the ASP Express's implementation of Tables is that with 'indenting', in a hierarchical fashion, it is made much more easily readable.
The Table Row tag is indented to the first tab stop inside the margin. Then, the Table Cell tag is indented to the second tab stop inside the Table Row tags.

Also, there is a Background Color item which can be selected. This can be put within the Table Open Tag, the Table Row Open tag, or the Table Cell Open Tag. But remember there's no way to automate this one. Wherever you cursor is, that's where it will be inserted. The best choice is to put your cursor just inside the closing bracket of the tag. This way, a space is inserted just before the BGColor command is inserted and it is put in a reasonable place.

There is also a list of common Table Cell attributes that are insertable. Again, there is no really good way of automating this either except to make it necessary to put your cursor just to the right of the 'TD' inside the Table Cell open tag. If you don't, you will be prompted to do so. The cell attributes are :
Cell Alignment (vertical & horizontal)
Cell Width & Height
Cell Spacing & Padding
ColSpan & RowSpan
NoWrap

LIST TAGS
The following are the common list tags which are supported by ASP Express:
Ordered
Unordered
Menu
Definition
Each of the above list types are creatable with or without selected text. The 'List Item' tag can be used within the Ordered, Unordered and Menu Lists. For the Definition List, things are a little different. There are no close tags for Definition Title and Definition Item, so you can't have any text highlighted when inserting them. Just put your cursor just to the left of the text you want defined as a Title or Item and insert them.

STYLE SHEETS
There are three choices under Insert/Stylesheets Pull-down menu.
One is the Link to StyleSheet, which will put a style sheet reference within the Open & Close Head Tags. Another option is the embedded stylesheet which basically only inserts the following:
<STYLE TYPE="text/css">
<!--
-->
</STYLE>

You can choose 'Create StyleSheet' from the Insert/StyleSheets pull-down menu.
This will bring up a dialog with a few basic HTML Tags built in and allows you to add tags you need to define in your stylesheet. For instance, if you wanted to have a certain font, or font color in your Table Cells, you could click the 'Add Tag' button to add 'TD' to the pull-down list. Likewise, you can also remove tags from the list with the 'Remove' button.

To add a 'style' to a tag, click the check box to the left of the option you want to add. This will enable the pull-down list to the right. Then, you can choose from the pull-down list. On each tab (FONT, ALIGN, COLOR), you make your choices and then click the Apply Button. You will see your changes appear in the text box on the right side of the StyleSheet Dialog box. If you want to change an option you have already applied to this text box, you must delete it manually, then go back to your StyleSheet choices to add it back in again.

Once you have finished creating the stylesheet, you can choose to embed it in the existing active HTML/ASP document, or save it as a separate stylesheet. If you choose to save it as a separate stylesheet, it will also, automatically add a link to the saved stylesheet in the existing active HTML/ASP document.

JAVASCRIPT
For the JavaScript savvy, ASP Express includes some basic shells for some JavaScript commands. Naturally, the basic Javascript shell is included along with the following: For Loop
Function - (generic tag "FunctionNameGoesHere" needs to be replace with designed function name)
If
If Else
While Loop
With Object
Along with these, the basic OnMouseOver and OnMouseOut events are included too. This is the exact text which will be inserted:
onMouseOver="WhatToDo(); window.status='StatusBarMessageHere'; return true" ("WhatToDo" is highlighted upon insertion) &
onMouseOut="WhatToDo(); window.status='StatusBarMessageHere'; return true" ("WhatToDo" is highlighted upon insertion)
With these mouse events, there are two items which are generic tags ("WhatToDo" & "StatusBarMessageHere") that naturally need to be replaced.
INSERT NAME
This 'command' can be put anywhere that it is desireable to apply a name. It is quite common in JavaScript to define objects, therefore it was put just under the JavaScript pull-down menu item. Naturally, there are other places/uses, like Frames. Nevertheless, the text :
Name="NameGoesHere"
is inserted using this pull-down menu item. The text 'NameGoesHere' is automatically highlighted for your immediate input.

F-11 HTML TOOLBAR
This menu item turns off & on the ASP Express Toolbar - the second toolbar with all the HTML-Specific buttons.

POP-UP MENUS (Right Mouse Button Click)
When any amount of text is highlighted and the right mouse button is clicked, a pop-up menu will appear which is the same as the 'Formatting' Pull-Down Menu.
When no text is highlighted and the right mouse button is clicked, a pop-up menu will appear which is the same as the 'Insert' Pull-Down Menu

WEB PAGE

SELECT COLORS
This window/Assistant lets you choose any of the basic colors of your HTML page - Background, Text, Link, Visited Link, Active Link. Just click on the item who's color you want to assign (right column) and move the scollbars, adjusting the RGB levels until you have the perfect match for that item. Once that item is selected, choose another item, and so on. Once you have applied all the colors you want, just click the 'Apply' button. This will locate your BODY Tag & insert your changes within the Tag.

BACKGROUND IMAGE
This selection window allows you to set a background image/graphic for your HTML page. Whichever graphic you choose will be tiled throughout the page. Here, the directory box will show your default subdirectory setting (set in Preferences), if you've set it. You can either leave it alone, if it's correct, or change it, if necessary. The Fixed Background check box is there for MSIE users who want the Background Image fixed when you scroll the text in the HTML page. This is also what the Fixed Background Pull Down Menu is for.

PUBLISH PAGE
With this screen, you can either send the saved version of the file you are working with or another saved file to the web server of your choice. If you have assigned a default URL, logon name and password in the OPTIONS, these defaults will automatically show up in the appropriate boxes. If you, you can assign them as needed. Either way, you can still enter new values in each box.
Before you do this, you will need to be connected to the internet using your internet provider of choice. To send a file to a specific directory, there must be a valid URL in the URL box and you must also enter a valid directory name in the Directory Text box.
If the file has been saved, it will show up automatically in the FileName text box.
Even if you aren't changing directories, once you have entered the correct URL & password, click the Change Directory button. This will log you into the URL. To make sure that the correct URL and Directory name has been chosen, be sure to look at the 'Send File To:' box. When you click on the Send File button, it will go to the path (including directory, if any) that shows up here.

VIEW
One of the other great features of ASP Express - If you have MS Internet Explorer 4.0 or above installed on your machine, then ASP Express will use the 'engine' of it to create an internal Viewer for your HTML page. If you do not have it installed, ASP Express will inform you of this and, once you click the OK button, it will load your System's Default Browser in order to view your page.

Search/Find and Replace
Now, under the Search pull-down menu, you can choose Find or, when you press Ctrl-F, you will get a new Find screen. This will essentially do the same as before, but the screen will stay on top and allow you to continue your search. Once your found word is highlighted, click the Find Screen again and click the Find Next button. If you decide to search for a different word, when you replace the word in the text box, the starting point will automatically return to the top of the file. You will also notice, that as you add words to be found, it is added to a running list, so if you have another document open that you want to search in for the same word, just click on the arrow and choose the word you want and click on Find Next. Naturally, once you quit the program, this list goes away, but the list will stay as long as you have ASP Express running.

You also will notice there is a Replace Tab. Click on it and you will not only see a Find text box, but a replace text box. When you put a word in the Find box, click on Find Next. Then, type your word in the Replace text box & click replace. It will replace the word that it found and find the next one. You can, at any time, click cancel to close the dialog box and conclude your searching. The Replace text box also keeps a running list of words you used.

And lastly, but not least, if you type in a word in the Find box, type a word in the Replace box, and click Replace All, as promised, the procedure will start from the beginning of file and replace every instance of the word you typed in the Find box with the word you typed in your Replace text box. Please use caution as this procedure can not be undone.

The Replace item in the Search Pull down menu goes directly to the Replace positioning of this Find/Replace screen.

Keep in mind that the previous, simple search/find and Find Next (F3) items are still available, if needed, but under the Edit pull-down menu.

Change Viewing Font
To change the viewing font of your page, click on the status bar, at the bottom of the screen, where the font name and size are listed. This will give you the standard font size and name dialog. There are two things to keep in mind:
1. This will ONLY change the viewing font while you are editing the file. This has nothing to do with the font on the web page when it is viewed by a browser.
2. By changing the font this way, it is temporary. To change the font so that the new font is used each time ASP Express is used, go to the File pull-down menu and choose Properties. Click on the Font Info tab, choose GET FONT & SIZE. Then click in the Save Settings check box and click the APPLY button. This will save your Font Viewing preferences.

Most ASP related items are under the ASP pull down menu. But there is, at this time, one exception. That is the ASP Structures Tool Bar. Click the View pull down menu and choose the ASP Structures Tool Bar. When the toolbar appears, you will see buttons to create basic ASP function templates such as the Select Statement, If-Then, Do-While Loop, and For-Next Loop. Also, there's an ASP Comment button. Click anywhere in the line you want commented out and it will go to the beginning and insert a single quote comment marker.

Under the ASP pull-down menu, there is an ASP Code entry. This will allow you to insert several pieces of ASP code directly into your ASP/HTML Page. Some of the entries are:

VBScript Header	Script Runat
Open/Close Script Tags	Surround with ASP Tags
Request	Response
Standard ADO Prefix	Execute SQL Statement
Include File	ADO Connection Assistant

REQUEST: You get a dialog box where you can choose 'Form' or 'Querystring', depending on what action you chose in your Form. To insert your new variables, you have two options - Automatic and Manual.
If you have gone through the Form Creation process and have 'Grabbed' all the form field names, and they're all generic, you might want to just choose Automatic Variable Creation. This will automatically create variables for all the FormFields it has grabbed (with 'str' in front of the form field name as the name of the variables)
You also have the choice of Manual Variable Creation. This way, you can :

1. Give your variables your own special names, and
2. Choose to add a 'Replace' section of coding after each one. The default code replaces a single quote with two single quotes.

RESPONSE: Here you have a dialog with all the Response possibilities, along with the choice for opening & closing ASP tags, including the Recordset Name, Database FieldName, Line Break at end of Bracketed phrase.
If you click on the 'Include Recordset Name' Check Box, you can then enter a Recordset Name, and a FieldName. If you clicked the Open/Close ASP Tags, you would get an output similar to this:
<%=MyRS("FieldName")%>
This could come in handy when coding your output. For instance, You could type in the following Database fields for:
FirstName:
LastName:
Address:
Then - you could copy each one at a time and, after opening the Response dialog, Enter a Recordset name, and paste it in to the FieldName box, and click on 'Apply'. Once you enter the Recordset Name in the Recordset Name Box, it will continue to carry over until you quit the program. So, if you have multiple FieldNames, you only have to change that particular box each time you open the Response Dialog.

Response.Write - DoubleQuotes
Highlight a section of HTML text with double quotes and choose this command - it will convert the HTML into a correctly formatted Response.Write statement. Note - if there are forced line breaks (where the enter key was pressed), to work correctly, these must be deleted.

The Include File is just what it sounds like - You can use this in the Include File or Include Virtual formats.
If you are using the Include File format, first, click on the File Radio button. Then, browse for and choose the file you want. When it's found, just click 'Apply'.
For the Include Virtual format, just leave the Virtual Radio Button selected. You will notice 'ADOVBS.inc' is the default, so all you would have to do is click on 'Apply' to insert this statement in your file. Otherwise, browse for & choose the file desired. Since this is a Virtual file, you will then need to remove the portion of left side the file path, including the '\', that denotes the actual root for your Web Server. Then, simply click 'Apply' to insert the include file in your page.

Get Form Field Names does pretty much what it says. If you have an existing form and you are going to be building an ASP document which uses the information entered in the form, then you will want to use this pull down menu item. It looks at the form on your document and grabs all the Form Field Names, putting them in the pull down box in the Request Screen when you need it.
When you create a form from scratch, using the Form Assistant, this is done automatically.

Now - here's the really powerful part - the ADO Connection Assistant
When this dialog box comes up, you enter your Variables for your connection, Recordset, DSN (or DSN-less connection), and SQL Statement. You can build your own SQL statement manually here, if you want. If you click DSN-less connection, you and you are using an Access database, you can choose and use a local copy of the database in this feature. If you choose it here, the database will automatically carry over to the SQL statement builder Assistants. Also, there's an SQL Builder Assistants section where you can get help building your Select and Insert SQL statements.

The output section allows you to choose how you want to view your actual output. Your three choices are:
HTML Table, Select List (form), and None

To get help with the SQL Select statement, click on the Select button. You are presented with a window that includes three steps. If you want the easiest way through it all, choose each of the three in order. To work with Number 1, you must have a local copy of the Access database on your computer or attached network. If you have not chosen DSN-less connection, here, you Choose the database. This will automatically fill the field and table pull down boxes. Of course, if you have already chosen DSN-less connection and selected the database in that dialog, these fields will automatically be filled when the dialog loads.

If you are using an Inner Join statement, you might want to consider selecting the 'Table.Field Format' check box. If you do this, each field you choose will be in that format. This is very useful if you have tables with fields named alike.
If you merely want to Select all, choose the table in the Table Pull-down list, click the 'Select All' check box, and click the 'From' Button.

If you want to build your statement with certain fields, then choose the Table from the Table Pull-down list. This will populate the Field Pull-down list. From this list, click on the Field you want and then click the 'Add Field' button. Repeat this action for all the fields you need. If you are going to use an Inner Join, you can change the Table Selection during this process also.
Once you are finished adding fields, make sure the Table pull-down list has the correct Table selected and click the 'From' Button.

This will give you two choices - one is to just go on. The other is to continue and make an Inner Join Statement. Once the Inner Join Button is enabled, click it. This will add the Inner Join text to the window and it also enables the 'Add Table' button. Now, select a secondary Table name from the Table Pull-down list for the Inner Join. You should know this by the Table that was already selected when you clicked the 'From' button.

Now, click the 'Add Table' button. This adds the secondary table in the statement and the word 'ON' which now enables the 'Field 1' button. Choose the first field in the statement where you want the link between tables to take place. Once this is clicked, it gives you the first field with an '=' sign after it, along with the 'Field 2' button becoming enabled. Select your secondary table and the field which matches the first field and click the 'Field 2' button.

At this point, you are finished with this section. Click the 'Enter' button.
This will enable the Third Section, where you can further narrow your search with WHERE and ORDER BY clauses.
Then, choose the items you want in the second section and press the enter key. This will make all the items in the third section available for use. Beside the word 'WHERE', there is a pull down menu with all the field names. Pick the field name for your Where clause. Then pick the operator ( =, =>, >, <=, <, <>. or LIKE). Then, if you have Request.Form or Request.Querystring variables already set on the page, you can choose the variable from the Variable pull-down menu. You will probably notice that the 'Order By' pull down box is empty...it's not, but there's not an automatic choice to make. This way, if you don't need the Order By part, you won't get it in your SQL statement. Once your 'parts' of the Select statement are assembled, click 'Apply'

If you know and understand SQL Select Statements, you will find this a breeze. If not, you may need to brush up on SQL to make this part worthwhile. Naturally, this may not be the exact form that you need for your SQL statement, but it does what it is meant to do - it gives you a great start and cuts down greatly on your typing.

If you want the output automatically put in an HTML Table, click the appropriate box on the ADO Connection screen.

The Insert Help button is just what it sounds like. Like the Select Help button helped you with your Select SQL Statement, the Insert Help helps you get started with your Insert SQL statements. The form is much the same, but, in section 3, you are given two list boxes. The one on the left is the list of Access Database fields. The one on the right is the list of Variables you've defined on the page. If you have all your Request.* variables declared on the page, the Variable list box is automatically populated and then, if you don't have a local copy of the Access database to which you are attaching, you can enter the database fields manually. Also, if you haven't declared all your Request.* variables, you can then enter them manually also. But keep in mind, they have to match what you later insert on the page.

DSN-Less Connections
This allows you to automatically choose a DSN-Less connection instead of a DSN. You can choose between an Access, SQL Server, or Oracle Database. You must know things like Database name, Server name, etc. to fill in the blanks.

Preferences
In the preferences dialog, you can set: Startup 1 - Your default Root directory (the directory where you always want the program to open), the default Graphics directory, your default email address (for use in mailto links),
Startup 2 - Default FileType (either HTML or ASP), and whether or not your ASP Structures Toolbar is automatically on or not, whether or not you want Word Wrap on or off, Auto-coloring of Tags on or off, Web Safe color palette.
Font Info - The default Font & Size used in the Editor
FTP Info - The URL, login name & password for the place where you will most ofen be FTP'ing your files. Where ever The Check box for 'Save Setting' is located, you must check this box first before clicking 'Apply'

Code Librarian
When you choose 'Code Librarian', a dialog box appears with two text boxes. The one on the left is the name of your script, for identification purposes. When you click on one of the items in the left text box, it's corresponding code will appear on the right side. To insert it into your document, at the place where you left your cursor, you can either click on the 'Apply' button, or double click on the item name in the left text box.

Naturally, you can add snippets of code to your Library also. To do this, just click on the 'Add New' button. You will notice that the right text box clears itself of all text and a new text box appears just above the lower buttons, labeled 'New Item'. Also, the 'Update' button turns magenta (that's as close as I can come to exact) in color.

In the 'New Item' text box, you will type in a short name for your script. Make sure it's something you will find it easy to identify with the script you will be entering. Next, either type, copy or drop (drag & drop) the new code snippet in the right side text box. The only thing left is to click the 'Update' button. There, you have it. Your new code is now part of your library to use at any later date.

Also, if you want to change the name of your snippet, or the code within the snippet, press the 'Edit' button. As with the 'AddNew' process, the 'Update' button will turn Magenta in color and in order to update the changes, the 'Update' button must be pressed. If you change your mind, once the 'AddNew' or 'Edit' process is started....make sure to press the 'Cancel' button to cancel the transaction. Otherwise, results are questionable, at least.

Hit Counter
Here, you can create your own ASP hit counters for each ASP document in your web site. Keep in mind, this is not a graphical, but a text based counter. Start by placing your cursor at the exact place you want your counter to display. Even though you only notice one seamless process, this is actually done in a series of steps.
First, a new document is created for the actual counting process. You can save this document anywhere on your site you desire, but, personally, I recommend keeping all your counter documents in one 'Counter' directory. The directory doesn't need to be named 'Counter' - it can be named anything you like. As the new counter page is created, it is given the same name as the page which is referenced by it, but with a '.cnt' extension.

**Note: You are working and saving on a local or network computer. If these files are to be moved, the actual file structure on your local disk must mirror the same structure as your production server. Otherwise, when moved, the code will not work.

Once the counter file is saved, the next step is to make a couple of choices. You will notice two check boxes - one for 'Session Sensitive' and the other marked 'Visible'. 'Session Sensitive' merely means that once the web page is hit by an end user, if he refreshes the page, the counter will not increment, since he's still in the same session. The 'Visible' check box is fairly self explanatory. If you want the counter file to increment, but you don't need or want your counter to show on the page, check this box. Web designers have varying opinions on whether or not visible counters are 'cool'.

Since your local file architecture is mirroring your web file architecture, the next step is important. You will notice that your Filename.cnt (counter file) is listed in the lower text box with its entire local/network path. This may or may not be a workable web server. At any rate, the note below the text box is very important. It says, "Remove the portion of the directory (to the left) that is the Web Root."

What this means is that, if the text box has the following:
C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\Counters\main.cnt Then, what you need to do is highlight 'C:\Inetpub\wwwroot' and delete it. That will leave '\Counters\main.cnt'. This final portion needs to reflect the actual web root position on your web server. If this is incorrect - the counter will not increment.

Go To Line Number (Ctrl-G)
This is fairly straight-forward. If you need to go to a specific line number, just press Ctrl-G and enter the number of the line. Then, click the 'Go' button. It will automatically turn off Word Wrap to get an exact line count.

Response - Clear
This is a set of two buttons - Response & Clear. The 'Response' button is a Response.Write button. It will put the entire syntax, 'Response.Write "PutDataHere" ', with 'PutDataHere' highlighted. This is so you can write out exact HTML code.
If you want to write out a variable, the 'Clear' button clears the highlighted text & the double quotes.

Insert ASP Date
Here, you can choose between the standard formats (General, Long Date, Short Date, Short Time and Long Time). Also, you can choose whether or not to surround the phrase with Open & Close ASP tags, a Response.write format or 'MyVariable=' format

Convert Text to HTML
**Note: YOU MUST HAVE A TEXT FILE (NOT AN ASP OR HTML FORMATTED FILE) OPEN FOR THIS TO WORK CORRECTLY!
This is a very simple conversion process...basically, the way the line breaks and paragraphs are formatted in your text file are the way the html formatting will be done. If there's a plain line break, a <BR> will replace it. If there is a blank line between lines, a <P> will replace it. This is not meant to be a full-featured converter, just a quick way to get rid of some of those nasty formatting chores in an easy manner!

Set Form Field Focus(Alt-I-F-S)
This procedure allows any form field you designate to receive 'focus' upon the loading of the page. This means the cursor will automatically be in the form field you define. First, you must designate a Form Name. If you double-click on the Form Name and then choose this procedure, the form field name will automatically appear in the correct text box when the dialog box appears. If not, you get a message telling you to 'Put Form Name Here'. If the page you have showing is a form page (and it should be), all the form field names will be 'grabbed' automatically and inserted into a pull down list in the dialog box.
Once you make the choice of which of the Form Fields you want your cursor to default in, click the 'Set Focus' button. This will automatically put the correct Javascript syntax in the 'BODY' tag for you.

Convert Open/Close Tags(Alt-I-P-V)
Sometimes, you need to show an open and/or closing HTML bracket (< or >) on your web page, just as it is (like in a tutorial). To do this in HTML so that the web browser doesn't recognize this as a real open or close bracket, you need to use the correct HTML syntax. To do this in ASP Express, just highlight the text you need to conver and run this command - voila - you have the correct syntax on your web page.

File Manager
This is a window that comes up and stays 'docked' to the main ASP Express window which allows you to choose the Drive, Directory & File Visually. It will also default to the directory you designate as your default directory in the Preferences Dialog. Under the 'View' Pull-down Menu, choose File Manager to view it if it has been closed. Under the File Pull-down Menu, choose 'Join File Manager' to join it to the Main ASP Express window, if you have moved the Main ASP Express window away from it, or closed the File Manager.

International Characters
To get a window/dialog where you can correctly insert International Characters in your HTML, choose F7.
If you have an International keyboard, when the page is finished, you can choose to highlight a section, or if no section is highlighted, selecting Shift-F11 (Web Page/Convert/International Characters to HTML Tags), you can convert all your international characters to the correct HTML syntax automatically.
With Shift-F12, you can reverse this procedure.

These Help pages were written entirely with ASP Express!