Although they may also be generated by web forms and Shopping Cart purchases, you may manually create new data tables by clicking on the “Create New Data Table” button from the DB Manager Menu.

Name and Number of Fields
In this step, create a name for the database and specify the number of key fields it should have.

1. What is the name for this table?
You can name your database table anything you like, so long as it does not exceed 25 characters in length, and does not use numbers or spaces, however you may use underscores to represent spaces.

2. How many fields will this table contain?
The “fields” in a given table are the titles of each column of data (i.e. First Name).

Field Names
Once the table has been named and the number of fields have been specified, you must enter names for the fields, and specify their characteristics. Novices who are unsure about what some of these options mean should input their field names and leave the default selections as set by default. This will insure proper operation.

Field Name: A field is essentially a column of data, its name is that column’s title (i.e. First_Name). Like the name of the table itself, these names may not contain spaces, but underscores may be used in the place of spaces.

Field Type and Length: Those familiar with mySQL may specify each field’s type. Otherwise, the type and length should remain set to CHAR and 255, respectively.

Default Value: If new records are placed in the table that lack data in certain fields, the field’s Default Value will be inserted in place of the missing data.