3

I have a college capstone project that involves creating an Access database table of movies and putting that data on an optical disk. My proposed solution is to export the table in some form (that I haven't figured out) and use a Web page on the disk as the navigation menu. The point of this exercise is to use material I learned from a variety of my classes: Access, Web Programming and GIS.

As a quick method, I exported the Access table as an HTML page. That works OK, but the code is ugly and tables are not the preferred method of displaying formatted pages (that's what we have XML for). I'd rather export the data in a form that a Web page could extract and display independently. I'm looking for suggestions.

Opcode
  • 53
  • 2
  • 8
  • Does your coursework not indicate a preferred method of how to do this? It's honestly hard to answer this question as they're probably trying to make you do it using some skills you have learned. – Kye Nov 05 '13 at 05:50
  • If you prefer XML, check the Access help topic for the *Application.ExportXML Method*. – HansUp Nov 05 '13 at 05:51
  • Capstone projects are open-ended recapitulations of material I've covered in the pursuit of my degree. My project is to put some video I've shot onto a DVD, make an Access database of my movies to go with it and put an HTML5/CSS3 menu on the disk for navigation. My hope is to use the Web page on the DVD to pull up data from a static file and provide links to launch the video. I'm also trying to include GIS information, but I haven't even started working on that part of the project. I need something that is easy to modify, as I make changes to the design. – Opcode Nov 09 '13 at 02:02

1 Answers1

0

If you want to create a data DVD (will not be playable in DVD players), my recommendation would be to output your Access database to XML and use XSLT + CSS to format it for display. For more information: http://www.w3schools.com/xsl/

If you're looking for something a bit more interactive, you can use Adobe Flash to create an executable that loads the XML data file for display. The bonus here is that you can natively autorun the executable file on the disc (on Windows).

If your intention is to create a DVD that can play in DVD players, I'm not aware of software that will directly import an XML file as a source list. There are a few that utilize XML files for authoring, perhaps these are worth taking a look at: http://www.dvdbuilder.com/ http://dvdauthor.sourceforge.net/

Regardless, you cannot use XML files as a "source" for a DVD Video menu. DVDs use MPEG files for DVD menus, and they do not actively "run" software that can parse XML files at play time. The menus MUST be pre-rendered.

John Vargo
  • 530
  • 3
  • 9