Hi,friends I'm trying to write o

[rgao]

Hi,friends
I'm trying to write online support program to provide answer to customer's FAQ about product's maintaince and troubleshoting.
There are three possible solutions related with database design and ASP.I'm not sure which one is better ,so ask you guys opinion.

1.Put the the answer article in Table's field.when customer search it ,retrive it through ASP.It's the easiest way,but it may be not convinent for modifying the answer.

2.Convert every answer article to HTMl,sore their path in table,then hyperlinked with ASP

3.Leave the answer article in txt format.store their path in table .in ASP page using Filesystem object to read it.

I don't have lots of experience about it.possibly there are other solutions about it .what is the common solution for this kind of program (like microsoft support web site)

Any suggestion will be greatly appreciated.Thanks.

 

[cfk]

The first option would be best as it would allow easy search
of key words and titles and other properties in a single
query.
This will be quicker that running a query and then accessing the file system.

 

[Xenobia]

This would depend, for me, very much on what back-end database is in use, whether you're planning to include a search facility and, if so, what kind.

If you've got a decent SQL RDBMS at the backend (such as SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle etc) which supports full text querying (or even English Query in SQL server's case) then go for option 1.

A good search engine, espeically one that ranks articles in order of relevance is hard to beat when it comes to usability for the end user.

Of the three options, I'd avoid option 3 - using the filesystem object will hamper performance and you'll have no appreciable advantage in functionality over option 2.

Option 2 would probably give the quickest response times but you'll be relying on users to browse and articles list to find the one the want, and you can't guarantee that users will always know exactly what they're looking for or use the same terminology.

So, if possible I'd go with option 1 - writing a simple maintenance system for articles isn't that difficult.