David Remsen

Table of Contents

Web Databases

Trying Something Fancy

Databases are at their best storing data, generally numeric or string data. Performing searches and returning results of numerical data in tables can be hard to interpret. Computers work with numbers in large arrays better than people do. A large set of rows and columns containing nothing but numbers can present a person with difficulty in interpretation.

The beauty of HTML and web pages is that we can make them visually more interesting. Using a web database interface we can also make our results set more easily interpreted by allowing the computer to make some assessments of the data before it is presented to the eye.

Consider the following information taken from our sample database.

GENE	SW	TYPE	NUM	PRODUCT
alr	ALR1	enzyme	346	alanine racemase 1
modB	MODB	transport	112	molybdate transport permease protein
fruB	PTFA	enzyme	122	PTS system, fructose-specific IIA/fpr component
dcuB	DCUB	transport	441	anaerobic dicarboxylate transport
hisM	HISM	transport	210	histidine transport, membrane protein M
hydH	HYDH	enzyme	215	sensor kinase for HydG, hydrogenase 3 activity (second module)
hydH	HYDH	enzyme	208	sensor kinase for HydG, hydrogenase 3 activity (entire)
cydC	CYDC	transport	223	ATP-binding component of cytochrome-related transport (two modules)
cydC	CYDC	transport	206	ATP-binding component of cytochrome-related transport (both modules)
acrD	ACRD	putative transport	122	sensitivity to acriflavine, integral membrane protein, possible efflux pump
yfgA	YFGA	putative membrane protein	2	putative membrane protein
yhaF	YHAF	orf	3	orf
ispB	ISPB	enzyme	4	octaprenyl diphosphate synthase

The NUM column contains numeric value which were intentionally left ambiguous in meaning. They could represent anything. Imagine that in this case their value is important and that there are several threshold values that need to be monitored. Any value over 400 requires immediate attention, value between 200-400 are worth noting and under 200 are "good."

A person viewing this table (and perhaps dozens more "pages") needs to assess the numeric value of each row in order to make the proper assessment of the NUM value. This is, of course, something a computer should and can do.

Instead of a person making the assessement, we will add some conditional instructions to the results file that essentially says

If the NUM column value is greater than 400 - DO SOMETHING

If the NUM column value is between 200 and 400 DO SOMETHING ELSE

If the NUM column value is less than 200 then DO YET SOMETHING ELSE

Since people are very good at distinguishing color then we might consider making the different condition reflected by a color change, perhaps RED for the high values, YELLOW for the mid-values, and GREEN for the low values.

In some cases, the actual value might not even be that important unless the value is in the RED. What we will do next is use an image to represent the condition. We will use the following images to represent the three conditions.

	r.dot.jpg
	y.dot.jpg
	g.dot.jpg

• Go to the -Displaying Results section of the Filemaker Form library. The second section is called "Format as a table"
• Drag the table and associated fields and field labels to the new blank file.
• [FMP-RECORD] [/FMP-RECORD]

  Field_Label	Field_Label
  [FMP-FIELD: ]	[FMP-FIELD: ]

• Set the first field to the GENE column by double-clicking the FMP-Field icon and typing "gene."
• Edit the "Field_Label" text to read "Gene."
• Now the fun part.
• Click on the second FMP-Field icon in the second column and delete it by pressing Backspace.
• Go to the Filemaker Form Library and scroll down to "-Conditional Execution"
• There are two options: If and If/Else. Both include a red bounding box.
• Drag the If/Else tags from the Form Library to your document and drop it into the second (empty) column in your table.
• Double-Click the FMP-If icon so that the Object Editor appears. The "Condition" line will be blank.
• Type "NUM.gt.400" which in Filemaker-speak mean "If the NUM field is greater than 400."
• Then click your cursor back in your document so it is blinking within the red box underneath the FMP-If tag
• Insert the r.dot.jpg image.

Stop! At this point we have satisfied the first condition. The contents of the box containing the red dot image will only appear if NUM is greater than 400! Any other text or images in this box will likewise only be shown when that condition is met.

• Go back to the Filemaker Form Library and scroll down to "-Conditional Execution"
• Drag the If/Else tags from the Form Library to your document and place it under the FMP-Else icon so that it appears within the red box
• Double-Click the FMP-If icon so that the Object Editor appears. The "Condition" line will be blank.
• Type "NUM.gt.200" which in Filemaker-speak mean "If the NUM field is greater than 200."
• Then click your cursor back in your document so it is blinking within the red box underneath the FMP-If tag
• Insert the y.dot.jpg image.
• Then click your cursor back in your document so it is blinking within the red box underneath the second FMP-Else tag
• Insert the g.dot.jpg image.
• The contents of the second table cell will look like this.

[FMP-IF: NUM.gt.400] [FMP-ELSE] [FMP-IF: NUM.gt.200] [FMP-ELSE] [/FMP-IF] [/FMP-IF]

Stop and name the file "dots.htm"

The logic behind this structure is as follows

If the NUM field is greater than 400 then display the red dot ELSE
If the NUM field is greater than 200 then then display the yellow dot ELSE
- display the green dot.

To view the results file in action we have to go to the search form file, "search.htm" and change the format file from results.htm to our new results file, "dots.htm"

Open the file http://yourcomputer.mbl.edu/MI99/search.htm and reload.

Run a search. Find the "a" genes.

Excercise - Add other columns to the results table. Add the NUM numeric value to just the high values along with the red dot.