FreewayTalk
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Interactive Sign-Up Page w/No Skills
I have no scripting skills or knowledge of MySQL or anything that a normal person would probably use to do this thing that I want to do, but this is what I want to do and how I propose to do it. If there is another way for a person of my limited skills to do this, I would be happy to hear about it.
I want to build a page where people can sign up to volunteer for different shifts on an activity. There are 8 time slots throughout the day for two days, e.g., Sunday, 10:00am-12:00pm. I want them to fill in their names in the form fields and click submit for any shift they want. That means I would need the multiple forms action.
I will have each shift listed with an iFrame next to it displaying a text file that will be written to by Forms To Go, after they fill in their names and click the submit button by the appropriate shift. After they click submit, the redirect page will thank them and give them a link to return to the sign-up page, which will, hopefully, refresh the page so that the newly updated text file for that shift will be displayed. If not, I will also have instructions to refresh the browser page if their names don’t show up.
It means many text files and many form processors, and that’s okay, as long as it works. This is a rough image of what I’m thinking:
http://webflunky.com/TEST/signup.jpg
Robin Stark
Robin
Wow. That’s going to be a real headache to make and maintain. If you’re used to using FTG, then you must have PHP on your server. Can you make a little test file and find out what version? I have a couple of ideas you could try, but the precise implementation would depend on the version of PHP you have at hand.
Use a plain-text editor like TextWrangler or BBEdit or TextMate (or Apple TextEdit in plain-text mode) and create a new file. Paste the following code block into it:
<?php
phpinfo();
?>
(If you’re viewing this in Mail, don’t include the row of tildes on either side.)
Save this file with some cryptic name that ends in .php, like asdfasdf.php, and upload it to your server somewhere. Visit this page with a web browser, and make note of the major and minor version of PHP (big type near the top) and also search for the term safe_mode and see if it is on or off. (There will be two settings for this property — global and local — note them both.)
Armed with this info, fire back to the list. Perhaps even consider posting this on the Dynamo list, where large blobs of code go relatively unchallenged. As complex as this form looks, I think the actual solution will be fairly elegant and will also teach you something. The method you propose will be a hard slog, will probably work okay, but will be incredibly difficult to make work in a meaningful manner.
Walter
On Nov 19, 2008, at 9:35 AM, Robin Stark wrote:
I have no scripting skills or knowledge of MySQL or anything that a normal person would probably use to do this thing that I want to do, but this is what I want to do and how I propose to do it. If there is another way for a person of my limited skills to do this, I would be happy to hear about it.
I want to build a page where people can sign up to volunteer for different shifts on an activity. There are 8 time slots throughout the day for two days, e.g., Sunday, 10:00am-12:00pm. I want them to fill in their names in the form fields and click submit for any shift they want. That means I would need the multiple forms action.
I will have each shift listed with an iFrame next to it displaying a text file that will be written to by Forms To Go, after they fill in their names and click the submit button by the appropriate shift. After they click submit, the redirect page will thank them and give them a link to return to the sign-up page, which will, hopefully, refresh the page so that the newly updated text file for that shift will be displayed. If not, I will also have instructions to refresh the browser page if their names don’t show up.
It means many text files and many form processors, and that’s okay, as long as it works. This is a rough image of what I’m thinking:
http://webflunky.com/TEST/signup.jpg
Robin Stark_______________________________________________
Freeway user since 1997
PHP 5.2.6 and safe_mode is off.
This has to be easy, Walter, really easy. Not Walter Lee Davis easy, but Shirley the Sheep easy. I am capable of tweaking code and changing settings AND following very precise instructions. I’m getting sweaty palms already. I was actually on the Dynamo list for a while, but I could only READ the emails, not UNDERSTAND any of it.
On Nov 19, 2008, at 9:06 AM, Walter Lee Davis wrote:
Wow. That’s going to be a real headache to make and maintain. If you’re used to using FTG, then you must have PHP on your server. Can you make a little test file and find out what version? I have a couple of ideas you could try, but the precise implementation would depend on the version of PHP you have at hand.
Use a plain-text editor like TextWrangler or BBEdit or TextMate (or Apple TextEdit in plain-text mode) and create a new file. Paste the following code block into it:
<?php > phpinfo(); > ?>(If you’re viewing this in Mail, don’t include the row of tildes on either side.)
Save this file with some cryptic name that ends in .php, like asdfasdf.php, and upload it to your server somewhere. Visit this page with a web browser, and make note of the major and minor version of PHP (big type near the top) and also search for the term safe_mode and see if it is on or off. (There will be two settings for this property — global and local — note them both.)
Armed with this info, fire back to the list. Perhaps even consider posting this on the Dynamo list, where large blobs of code go relatively unchallenged. As complex as this form looks, I think the actual solution will be fairly elegant and will also teach you something. The method you propose will be a hard slog, will probably work okay, but will be incredibly difficult to make work in a meaningful manner.
Walter
On Nov 19, 2008, at 9:35 AM, Robin Stark wrote:
I have no scripting skills or knowledge of MySQL or anything that a normal person would probably use to do this thing that I want to do, but this is what I want to do and how I propose to do it. If there is another way for a person of my limited skills to do this, I would be happy to hear about it.
I want to build a page where people can sign up to volunteer for different shifts on an activity. There are 8 time slots throughout the day for two days, e.g., Sunday, 10:00am-12:00pm. I want them to fill in their names in the form fields and click submit for any shift they want. That means I would need the multiple forms action.
I will have each shift listed with an iFrame next to it displaying a text file that will be written to by Forms To Go, after they fill in their names and click the submit button by the appropriate shift. After they click submit, the redirect page will thank them and give them a link to return to the sign-up page, which will, hopefully, refresh the page so that the newly updated text file for that shift will be displayed. If not, I will also have instructions to refresh the browser page if their names don’t show up.
It means many text files and many form processors, and that’s okay, as long as it works. This is a rough image of what I’m thinking:
Robin Stark
Robin Stark Web Flunky www.webflunky.com
Instant Messaging: GoogleTalk: email@hidden iChat: email@hidden
Robin
Unless you folk know otherwise, Forms To Go doesn’t write to text files on the server. The display side of the page would need extra code to achieve this.
It does write to text files, under Settings>Database, one of the options in Text File. I use it frequently. It’s plain text, no formatting, but it does write to the file.
On Nov 19, 2008, at 11:22 AM, Paul wrote:
Unless you folk know otherwise, Forms To Go doesnt write to text files on the server. The display side of the page would need extra code to achieve this.
Robin Stark
Robin
Great. You are in a fine place, then. Don’t worry, we’ll take this a step at a time.
You will be using a plain text file for your database, and a single form on one page to update everything. The first step will be to set up the form so that this will be simple to process. We’ll get to the rest in a while. From the looks of things, and from your initial message, there won’t be much need for a complex error-checking system. Can you presume that everyone will behave themselves and not register M. & M. Mouse for the noon shift?
I would lay this page out using a table drawn with the table tool. Draw a table with 4 columns and as many rows as you want to have time slots, some cellpadding to keep things from crashing together, and no borders.
In the first column, add your labels for the time slots. In the second column, don’t put anything yet. In the third column, add your text fields for names. Using the third tab from the left of the Inspector, name these fields as follows:
names[1][]
names[1][]
names[2][]
names[2][]
names[3][]
names[3][]
and so forth, changing the index number upward for each. The first pair of square brackets establishes the time slot key, the second establishes the id of that field. By leaving the second pair blank, you tell the Web server to treat it as an automatically-indexed array. This keeps you from having to name every single field in the form uniquely, and match it up with a similar handler on the processing script.
In the last column, add a single Submit button to each row. You won’t need to do anything special with these, they will all just submit the entire form.
When you have this part finished, post it somewhere that we can review it, and we’ll get on to the next stage.
Walter
On Nov 19, 2008, at 11:31 AM, Robin Stark wrote:
PHP 5.2.6 and safe_mode is off.
This has to be easy, Walter, really easy. Not Walter Lee Davis easy, but Shirley the Sheep easy. I am capable of tweaking code and changing settings AND following very precise instructions. I’m getting sweaty palms already. I was actually on the Dynamo list for a while, but I could only READ the emails, not UNDERSTAND any of it.
On Nov 19, 2008, at 9:06 AM, Walter Lee Davis wrote:
Wow. That’s going to be a real headache to make and maintain. If you’re used to using FTG, then you must have PHP on your server. Can you make a little test file and find out what version? I have a couple of ideas you could try, but the precise implementation would depend on the version of PHP you have at hand.
Use a plain-text editor like TextWrangler or BBEdit or TextMate (or Apple TextEdit in plain-text mode) and create a new file. Paste the following code block into it:
<?php >> phpinfo(); >> ?>(If you’re viewing this in Mail, don’t include the row of tildes on either side.)
Save this file with some cryptic name that ends in .php, like asdfasdf.php, and upload it to your server somewhere. Visit this page with a web browser, and make note of the major and minor version of PHP (big type near the top) and also search for the term safe_mode and see if it is on or off. (There will be two settings for this property — global and local — note them both.)
Armed with this info, fire back to the list. Perhaps even consider posting this on the Dynamo list, where large blobs of code go relatively unchallenged. As complex as this form looks, I think the actual solution will be fairly elegant and will also teach you something. The method you propose will be a hard slog, will probably work okay, but will be incredibly difficult to make work in a meaningful manner.
Walter
On Nov 19, 2008, at 9:35 AM, Robin Stark wrote:
I have no scripting skills or knowledge of MySQL or anything that a normal person would probably use to do this thing that I want to do, but this is what I want to do and how I propose to do it. If there is another way for a person of my limited skills to do this, I would be happy to hear about it.
I want to build a page where people can sign up to volunteer for different shifts on an activity. There are 8 time slots throughout the day for two days, e.g., Sunday, 10:00am-12:00pm. I want them to fill in their names in the form fields and click submit for any shift they want. That means I would need the multiple forms action.
I will have each shift listed with an iFrame next to it displaying a text file that will be written to by Forms To Go, after they fill in their names and click the submit button by the appropriate shift. After they click submit, the redirect page will thank them and give them a link to return to the sign-up page, which will, hopefully, refresh the page so that the newly updated text file for that shift will be displayed. If not, I will also have instructions to refresh the browser page if their names don’t show up.
It means many text files and many form processors, and that’s okay, as long as it works. This is a rough image of what I’m thinking:
Robin Stark
Robin Stark Web Flunky www.webflunky.com
Instant Messaging: GoogleTalk: email@hidden iChat: email@hidden
Freeway user since 1997
Thank you, Walter. No, I don’t expect these people to be spamming the sign-up list. It will only be up for a couple of weeks and they are all Rotarians who never do anything mischievous. Other people could, of course, but I’m hoping they won’t find it in two weeks.
My page is set up here: http://bellevuerotary.net/signups/bellringing/
On Nov 19, 2008, at 12:01 PM, Walter Lee Davis wrote:
Great. You are in a fine place, then. Don’t worry, we’ll take this a step at a time.
You will be using a plain text file for your database, and a single form on one page to update everything. The first step will be to set up the form so that this will be simple to process. We’ll get to the rest in a while. From the looks of things, and from your initial message, there won’t be much need for a complex error-checking system. Can you presume that everyone will behave themselves and not register M. & M. Mouse for the noon shift?
I would lay this page out using a table drawn with the table tool. Draw a table with 4 columns and as many rows as you want to have time slots, some cellpadding to keep things from crashing together, and no borders.
In the first column, add your labels for the time slots. In the second column, don’t put anything yet. In the third column, add your text fields for names. Using the third tab from the left of the Inspector, name these fields as follows:
names[1][] names[1][]
names[2][] names[2][]
names[3][] names[3][]
and so forth, changing the index number upward for each. The first pair of square brackets establishes the time slot key, the second establishes the id of that field. By leaving the second pair blank, you tell the Web server to treat it as an automatically-indexed array. This keeps you from having to name every single field in the form uniquely, and match it up with a similar handler on the processing script.
In the last column, add a single Submit button to each row. You won’t need to do anything special with these, they will all just submit the entire form.
When you have this part finished, post it somewhere that we can review it, and we’ll get on to the next stage.
Walter
On Nov 19, 2008, at 11:31 AM, Robin Stark wrote:
PHP 5.2.6 and safe_mode is off.
This has to be easy, Walter, really easy. Not Walter Lee Davis easy, but Shirley the Sheep easy. I am capable of tweaking code and changing settings AND following very precise instructions. I’m getting sweaty palms already. I was actually on the Dynamo list for a while, but I could only READ the emails, not UNDERSTAND any of it.
On Nov 19, 2008, at 9:06 AM, Walter Lee Davis wrote:
Wow. That’s going to be a real headache to make and maintain. If you’re used to using FTG, then you must have PHP on your server. Can you make a little test file and find out what version? I have a couple of ideas you could try, but the precise implementation would depend on the version of PHP you have at hand.
Use a plain-text editor like TextWrangler or BBEdit or TextMate (or Apple TextEdit in plain-text mode) and create a new file. Paste the following code block into it:
<?php >>> phpinfo(); >>> ?>(If you’re viewing this in Mail, don’t include the row of tildes on either side.)
Save this file with some cryptic name that ends in .php, like asdfasdf.php, and upload it to your server somewhere. Visit this page with a web browser, and make note of the major and minor version of PHP (big type near the top) and also search for the term safe_mode and see if it is on or off. (There will be two settings for this property — global and local — note them both.)
Armed with this info, fire back to the list. Perhaps even consider posting this on the Dynamo list, where large blobs of code go relatively unchallenged. As complex as this form looks, I think the actual solution will be fairly elegant and will also teach you something. The method you propose will be a hard slog, will probably work okay, but will be incredibly difficult to make work in a meaningful manner.
Walter
On Nov 19, 2008, at 9:35 AM, Robin Stark wrote:
I have no scripting skills or knowledge of MySQL or anything that a normal person would probably use to do this thing that I want to do, but this is what I want to do and how I propose to do it. If there is another way for a person of my limited skills to do this, I would be happy to hear about it.
I want to build a page where people can sign up to volunteer for different shifts on an activity. There are 8 time slots throughout the day for two days, e.g., Sunday, 10:00am-12:00pm. I want them to fill in their names in the form fields and click submit for any shift they want. That means I would need the multiple forms action.
I will have each shift listed with an iFrame next to it displaying a text file that will be written to by Forms To Go, after they fill in their names and click the submit button by the appropriate shift. After they click submit, the redirect page will thank them and give them a link to return to the sign-up page, which will, hopefully, refresh the page so that the newly updated text file for that shift will be displayed. If not, I will also have instructions to refresh the browser page if their names don’t show up.
It means many text files and many form processors, and that’s okay, as long as it works. This is a rough image of what I’m thinking:
Robin Stark
Robin Stark Web Flunky www.webflunky.com
Instant Messaging: GoogleTalk: email@hidden iChat: email@hidden
Robin
Looks good. I have one tiny change for you to make. I didn’t realize you weren’t going to have two entry fields per time slot, so unless you want to add those back, you can get rid of the second set of square brackets on the field names. names[22] vs. names[22][].
Next, change the filename (not the title) of your page to index.php, and in the Page > Form Setup dialog, change the Method to POST and the Action to index.php (submit the form to itself).
Using an FTP application, visit your server and have a look at the folder where you keep your site files. Try this little experiment. Starting at the folder where your site files live, move up one directory level so you are just outside of that folder. For example, maybe your site lives in a directory like this: /users/home/yourname/ domains/bellevuerotary/public_html. If so, move up a level to bellevuerotary. In that folder, try making a new folder (just to see if you have permission to do so). If you are able to, then select the folder and use your FTP app’s permissions tool (exact name depends on your exact software) to change the permissions on that folder to 777 (world-writable). Again, see if you have permission to do that. It’s not critical if you don’t, but it will be the best-case if you can.
Let me know how you get on with these steps, and I’ll post the next part to you.
Walter
On Nov 19, 2008, at 2:55 PM, Robin Stark wrote:
Thank you, Walter. No, I don’t expect these people to be spamming the sign-up list. It will only be up for a couple of weeks and they are all Rotarians who never do anything mischievous. Other people could, of course, but I’m hoping they won’t find it in two weeks.
My page is set up here: http://bellevuerotary.net/signups/bellringing/
On Nov 19, 2008, at 12:01 PM, Walter Lee Davis wrote:
Great. You are in a fine place, then. Don’t worry, we’ll take this a step at a time.
You will be using a plain text file for your database, and a single form on one page to update everything. The first step will be to set up the form so that this will be simple to process. We’ll get to the rest in a while. From the looks of things, and from your initial message, there won’t be much need for a complex error-checking system. Can you presume that everyone will behave themselves and not register M. & M. Mouse for the noon shift?
I would lay this page out using a table drawn with the table tool. Draw a table with 4 columns and as many rows as you want to have time slots, some cellpadding to keep things from crashing together, and no borders.
In the first column, add your labels for the time slots. In the second column, don’t put anything yet. In the third column, add your text fields for names. Using the third tab from the left of the Inspector, name these fields as follows:
names[1][] names[1][]
names[2][] names[2][]
names[3][] names[3][]
and so forth, changing the index number upward for each. The first pair of square brackets establishes the time slot key, the second establishes the id of that field. By leaving the second pair blank, you tell the Web server to treat it as an automatically- indexed array. This keeps you from having to name every single field in the form uniquely, and match it up with a similar handler on the processing script.
In the last column, add a single Submit button to each row. You won’t need to do anything special with these, they will all just submit the entire form.
When you have this part finished, post it somewhere that we can review it, and we’ll get on to the next stage.
Walter
On Nov 19, 2008, at 11:31 AM, Robin Stark wrote:
PHP 5.2.6 and safe_mode is off.
This has to be easy, Walter, really easy. Not Walter Lee Davis easy, but Shirley the Sheep easy. I am capable of tweaking code and changing settings AND following very precise instructions. I’m getting sweaty palms already. I was actually on the Dynamo list for a while, but I could only READ the emails, not UNDERSTAND any of it.
On Nov 19, 2008, at 9:06 AM, Walter Lee Davis wrote:
Wow. That’s going to be a real headache to make and maintain. If you’re used to using FTG, then you must have PHP on your server. Can you make a little test file and find out what version? I have a couple of ideas you could try, but the precise implementation would depend on the version of PHP you have at hand.
Use a plain-text editor like TextWrangler or BBEdit or TextMate (or Apple TextEdit in plain-text mode) and create a new file. Paste the following code block into it:
<?php >>>> phpinfo(); >>>> ?>(If you’re viewing this in Mail, don’t include the row of tildes on either side.)
Save this file with some cryptic name that ends in .php, like asdfasdf.php, and upload it to your server somewhere. Visit this page with a web browser, and make note of the major and minor version of PHP (big type near the top) and also search for the term safe_mode and see if it is on or off. (There will be two settings for this property — global and local — note them both.)
Armed with this info, fire back to the list. Perhaps even consider posting this on the Dynamo list, where large blobs of code go relatively unchallenged. As complex as this form looks, I think the actual solution will be fairly elegant and will also teach you something. The method you propose will be a hard slog, will probably work okay, but will be incredibly difficult to make work in a meaningful manner.
Walter
On Nov 19, 2008, at 9:35 AM, Robin Stark wrote:
I have no scripting skills or knowledge of MySQL or anything that a normal person would probably use to do this thing that I want to do, but this is what I want to do and how I propose to do it. If there is another way for a person of my limited skills to do this, I would be happy to hear about it.
I want to build a page where people can sign up to volunteer for different shifts on an activity. There are 8 time slots throughout the day for two days, e.g., Sunday, 10:00am-12:00pm. I want them to fill in their names in the form fields and click submit for any shift they want. That means I would need the multiple forms action.
I will have each shift listed with an iFrame next to it displaying a text file that will be written to by Forms To Go, after they fill in their names and click the submit button by the appropriate shift. After they click submit, the redirect page will thank them and give them a link to return to the sign- up page, which will, hopefully, refresh the page so that the newly updated text file for that shift will be displayed. If not, I will also have instructions to refresh the browser page if their names don’t show up.
It means many text files and many form processors, and that’s okay, as long as it works. This is a rough image of what I’m thinking:
Robin Stark
Robin Stark Web Flunky www.webflunky.com
Instant Messaging: GoogleTalk: email@hidden iChat: email@hidden
Freeway user since 1997
I am able create a folder in my home directory and change the permissions, but before I do that, since I already screwed it up by having only one name field, let me ask you this: I now have to add email and phone number fields, which they said they didn’t need before; is that going to mess this up more? Or can I just add them like the other name field, e.g., email[1], email[2], phone[1], phone[2])? They don’t have to display on the page, but they information needs to go to the coordinator in the FTG email.
On Nov 19, 2008, at 2:41 PM, Walter Lee Davis wrote:
Looks good. I have one tiny change for you to make. I didn’t realize you weren’t going to have two entry fields per time slot, so unless you want to add those back, you can get rid of the second set of square brackets on the field names. names[22] vs. names[22][].
Next, change the filename (not the title) of your page to index.php, and in the Page > Form Setup dialog, change the Method to POST and the Action to index.php (submit the form to itself).
Using an FTP application, visit your server and have a look at the folder where you keep your site files. Try this little experiment. Starting at the folder where your site files live, move up one directory level so you are just outside of that folder. For example, maybe your site lives in a directory like this: /users/home/yourname/ domains/bellevuerotary/public_html. If so, move up a level to bellevuerotary. In that folder, try making a new folder (just to see if you have permission to do so). If you are able to, then select the folder and use your FTP app’s permissions tool (exact name depends on your exact software) to change the permissions on that folder to 777 (world-writable). Again, see if you have permission to do that. It’s not critical if you don’t, but it will be the best- case if you can.
Let me know how you get on with these steps, and I’ll post the next part to you.
Walter
On Nov 19, 2008, at 2:55 PM, Robin Stark wrote:
Thank you, Walter. No, I don’t expect these people to be spamming the sign-up list. It will only be up for a couple of weeks and they are all Rotarians who never do anything mischievous. Other people could, of course, but I’m hoping they won’t find it in two weeks.
My page is set up here: http://bellevuerotary.net/signups/ bellringing/
On Nov 19, 2008, at 12:01 PM, Walter Lee Davis wrote:
Great. You are in a fine place, then. Don’t worry, we’ll take this a step at a time.
You will be using a plain text file for your database, and a single form on one page to update everything. The first step will be to set up the form so that this will be simple to process. We’ll get to the rest in a while. From the looks of things, and from your initial message, there won’t be much need for a complex error-checking system. Can you presume that everyone will behave themselves and not register M. & M. Mouse for the noon shift?
I would lay this page out using a table drawn with the table tool. Draw a table with 4 columns and as many rows as you want to have time slots, some cellpadding to keep things from crashing together, and no borders.
In the first column, add your labels for the time slots. In the second column, don’t put anything yet. In the third column, add your text fields for names. Using the third tab from the left of the Inspector, name these fields as follows:
names[1][] names[1][]
names[2][] names[2][]
names[3][] names[3][]
and so forth, changing the index number upward for each. The first pair of square brackets establishes the time slot key, the second establishes the id of that field. By leaving the second pair blank, you tell the Web server to treat it as an automatically- indexed array. This keeps you from having to name every single field in the form uniquely, and match it up with a similar handler on the processing script.
In the last column, add a single Submit button to each row. You won’t need to do anything special with these, they will all just submit the entire form.
When you have this part finished, post it somewhere that we can review it, and we’ll get on to the next stage.
Walter
On Nov 19, 2008, at 11:31 AM, Robin Stark wrote:
PHP 5.2.6 and safe_mode is off.
This has to be easy, Walter, really easy. Not Walter Lee Davis easy, but Shirley the Sheep easy. I am capable of tweaking code and changing settings AND following very precise instructions. I’m getting sweaty palms already. I was actually on the Dynamo list for a while, but I could only READ the emails, not UNDERSTAND any of it.
On Nov 19, 2008, at 9:06 AM, Walter Lee Davis wrote:
Wow. That’s going to be a real headache to make and maintain. If you’re used to using FTG, then you must have PHP on your server. Can you make a little test file and find out what version? I have a couple of ideas you could try, but the precise implementation would depend on the version of PHP you have at hand.
Use a plain-text editor like TextWrangler or BBEdit or TextMate (or Apple TextEdit in plain-text mode) and create a new file. Paste the following code block into it:
<?php >>>>> phpinfo(); >>>>> ?>(If you’re viewing this in Mail, don’t include the row of tildes on either side.)
Save this file with some cryptic name that ends in .php, like asdfasdf.php, and upload it to your server somewhere. Visit this page with a web browser, and make note of the major and minor version of PHP (big type near the top) and also search for the term safe_mode and see if it is on or off. (There will be two settings for this property — global and local — note them both.)
Armed with this info, fire back to the list. Perhaps even consider posting this on the Dynamo list, where large blobs of code go relatively unchallenged. As complex as this form looks, I think the actual solution will be fairly elegant and will also teach you something. The method you propose will be a hard slog, will probably work okay, but will be incredibly difficult to make work in a meaningful manner.
Walter
On Nov 19, 2008, at 9:35 AM, Robin Stark wrote:
I have no scripting skills or knowledge of MySQL or anything that a normal person would probably use to do this thing that I want to do, but this is what I want to do and how I propose to do it. If there is another way for a person of my limited skills to do this, I would be happy to hear about it.
I want to build a page where people can sign up to volunteer for different shifts on an activity. There are 8 time slots throughout the day for two days, e.g., Sunday, 10:00am-12:00pm. I want them to fill in their names in the form fields and click submit for any shift they want. That means I would need the multiple forms action.
I will have each shift listed with an iFrame next to it displaying a text file that will be written to by Forms To Go, after they fill in their names and click the submit button by the appropriate shift. After they click submit, the redirect page will thank them and give them a link to return to the sign- up page, which will, hopefully, refresh the page so that the newly updated text file for that shift will be displayed. If not, I will also have instructions to refresh the browser page if their names don’t show up.
It means many text files and many form processors, and that’s okay, as long as it works. This is a rough image of what I’m thinking:
Robin Stark Web Flunky www.webflunky.com
Instant Messaging: GoogleTalk: email@hidden iChat: email@hidden
Robin
Yes, you can do that. As long as the numbers line up, then it will just work. We’ll use those numbers as the key to hold it all together.
Walter
On Nov 19, 2008, at 4:18 PM, Robin Stark wrote:
I am able create a folder in my home directory and change the permissions, but before I do that, since I already screwed it up by having only one name field, let me ask you this: I now have to add email and phone number fields, which they said they didn’t need before; is that going to mess this up more? Or can I just add them like the other name field, e.g., email[1], email[2], phone[1], phone [2])? They don’t have to display on the page, but they information needs to go to the coordinator in the FTG email.
On Nov 19, 2008, at 2:41 PM, Walter Lee Davis wrote:
Looks good. I have one tiny change for you to make. I didn’t realize you weren’t going to have two entry fields per time slot, so unless you want to add those back, you can get rid of the second set of square brackets on the field names. names[22] vs. names[22][].
Next, change the filename (not the title) of your page to index.php, and in the Page > Form Setup dialog, change the Method to POST and the Action to index.php (submit the form to itself).
Using an FTP application, visit your server and have a look at the folder where you keep your site files. Try this little experiment. Starting at the folder where your site files live, move up one directory level so you are just outside of that folder. For example, maybe your site lives in a directory like this: /users/ home/yourname/domains/bellevuerotary/public_html. If so, move up a level to bellevuerotary. In that folder, try making a new folder (just to see if you have permission to do so). If you are able to, then select the folder and use your FTP app’s permissions tool (exact name depends on your exact software) to change the permissions on that folder to 777 (world-writable). Again, see if you have permission to do that. It’s not critical if you don’t, but it will be the best-case if you can.
Let me know how you get on with these steps, and I’ll post the next part to you.
Walter
On Nov 19, 2008, at 2:55 PM, Robin Stark wrote:
Thank you, Walter. No, I don’t expect these people to be spamming the sign-up list. It will only be up for a couple of weeks and they are all Rotarians who never do anything mischievous. Other people could, of course, but I’m hoping they won’t find it in two weeks.
My page is set up here: http://bellevuerotary.net/signups/ bellringing/
On Nov 19, 2008, at 12:01 PM, Walter Lee Davis wrote:
Great. You are in a fine place, then. Don’t worry, we’ll take this a step at a time.
You will be using a plain text file for your database, and a single form on one page to update everything. The first step will be to set up the form so that this will be simple to process. We’ll get to the rest in a while. From the looks of things, and from your initial message, there won’t be much need for a complex error-checking system. Can you presume that everyone will behave themselves and not register M. & M. Mouse for the noon shift?
I would lay this page out using a table drawn with the table tool. Draw a table with 4 columns and as many rows as you want to have time slots, some cellpadding to keep things from crashing together, and no borders.
In the first column, add your labels for the time slots. In the second column, don’t put anything yet. In the third column, add your text fields for names. Using the third tab from the left of the Inspector, name these fields as follows:
names[1][] names[1][]
names[2][] names[2][]
names[3][] names[3][]
and so forth, changing the index number upward for each. The first pair of square brackets establishes the time slot key, the second establishes the id of that field. By leaving the second pair blank, you tell the Web server to treat it as an automatically-indexed array. This keeps you from having to name every single field in the form uniquely, and match it up with a similar handler on the processing script.
In the last column, add a single Submit button to each row. You won’t need to do anything special with these, they will all just submit the entire form.
When you have this part finished, post it somewhere that we can review it, and we’ll get on to the next stage.
Walter
On Nov 19, 2008, at 11:31 AM, Robin Stark wrote:
PHP 5.2.6 and safe_mode is off.
This has to be easy, Walter, really easy. Not Walter Lee Davis easy, but Shirley the Sheep easy. I am capable of tweaking code and changing settings AND following very precise instructions. I’m getting sweaty palms already. I was actually on the Dynamo list for a while, but I could only READ the emails, not UNDERSTAND any of it.
On Nov 19, 2008, at 9:06 AM, Walter Lee Davis wrote:
Wow. That’s going to be a real headache to make and maintain. If you’re used to using FTG, then you must have PHP on your server. Can you make a little test file and find out what version? I have a couple of ideas you could try, but the precise implementation would depend on the version of PHP you have at hand.
Use a plain-text editor like TextWrangler or BBEdit or TextMate (or Apple TextEdit in plain-text mode) and create a new file. Paste the following code block into it:
<?php >>>>>> phpinfo(); >>>>>> ?>(If you’re viewing this in Mail, don’t include the row of tildes on either side.)
Save this file with some cryptic name that ends in .php, like asdfasdf.php, and upload it to your server somewhere. Visit this page with a web browser, and make note of the major and minor version of PHP (big type near the top) and also search for the term safe_mode and see if it is on or off. (There will be two settings for this property — global and local — note them both.)
Armed with this info, fire back to the list. Perhaps even consider posting this on the Dynamo list, where large blobs of code go relatively unchallenged. As complex as this form looks, I think the actual solution will be fairly elegant and will also teach you something. The method you propose will be a hard slog, will probably work okay, but will be incredibly difficult to make work in a meaningful manner.
Walter
On Nov 19, 2008, at 9:35 AM, Robin Stark wrote:
I have no scripting skills or knowledge of MySQL or anything that a normal person would probably use to do this thing that I want to do, but this is what I want to do and how I propose to do it. If there is another way for a person of my limited skills to do this, I would be happy to hear about it.
I want to build a page where people can sign up to volunteer for different shifts on an activity. There are 8 time slots throughout the day for two days, e.g., Sunday, 10:00am-12:00pm. I want them to fill in their names in the form fields and click submit for any shift they want. That means I would need the multiple forms action.
I will have each shift listed with an iFrame next to it displaying a text file that will be written to by Forms To Go, after they fill in their names and click the submit button by the appropriate shift. After they click submit, the redirect page will thank them and give them a link to return to the sign-up page, which will, hopefully, refresh the page so that the newly updated text file for that shift will be displayed. If not, I will also have instructions to refresh the browser page if their names don’t show up.
It means many text files and many form processors, and that’s okay, as long as it works. This is a rough image of what I’m thinking:
Robin Stark Web Flunky www.webflunky.com
Instant Messaging: GoogleTalk: email@hidden iChat: email@hidden
Freeway user since 1997
I asked Walter some questions off the list and included his answer below. I have followed his instructions and it’s working as it should.
http://bellevuerotary.net/signups/bellringing/
Two more steps to go!
On Nov 20, 2008, at 9:55 AM, Walter Lee Davis wrote:
Try this out, as a debugging step. Drop the data.php file (located here: http://pastie.org/319804) in your Web root folder (alongside the index.php file generated by Freeway).
Open the data.php file in your text editor, and change the first line to read:
$database = ‘../data/file.txt’;
Add or delete ../ depending on the location of data.php and index.php in relation to the data directory that was created. Experiment until it works.
The second line should be whatever you are calling the name field. If they’re called name[1][] in Freeway, then change this to read:
$name_field = ‘name’;
Back in Freeway, open the Page / HTML Markup dialog, switch to the Before HTML section and paste the following:
<?php >>>> require('data.php'); >>>> ?>Upload your page, and visit it. You should see a little bit of code-formatted script at the top:
Array ( )
If you fill in a few names and submit, you should see this array fill in with the names you’ve entered. At the moment, everything else is being dropped on the floor. We’re doing this a step at a time, like building a bridge across a chasm by standing on it as you go.
On Nov 19, 2008, at 3:40 PM, Walter Lee Davis wrote:
Yes, you can do that. As long as the numbers line up, then it will just work. We’ll use those numbers as the key to hold it all together.
Walter
On Nov 19, 2008, at 4:18 PM, Robin Stark wrote:
I am able create a folder in my home directory and change the permissions, but before I do that, since I already screwed it up by having only one name field, let me ask you this: I now have to add email and phone number fields, which they said they didn’t need before; is that going to mess this up more? Or can I just add them like the other name field, e.g., email[1], email[2], phone[1], phone[2])? They don’t have to display on the page, but they information needs to go to the coordinator in the FTG email.
On Nov 19, 2008, at 2:41 PM, Walter Lee Davis wrote:
Looks good. I have one tiny change for you to make. I didn’t realize you weren’t going to have two entry fields per time slot, so unless you want to add those back, you can get rid of the second set of square brackets on the field names. names[22] vs. names[22][].
Next, change the filename (not the title) of your page to index.php, and in the Page > Form Setup dialog, change the Method to POST and the Action to index.php (submit the form to itself).
Using an FTP application, visit your server and have a look at the folder where you keep your site files. Try this little experiment. Starting at the folder where your site files live, move up one directory level so you are just outside of that folder. For example, maybe your site lives in a directory like this: /users/ home/yourname/domains/bellevuerotary/public_html. If so, move up a level to bellevuerotary. In that folder, try making a new folder (just to see if you have permission to do so). If you are able to, then select the folder and use your FTP app’s permissions tool (exact name depends on your exact software) to change the permissions on that folder to 777 (world-writable). Again, see if you have permission to do that. It’s not critical if you don’t, but it will be the best-case if you can.
Let me know how you get on with these steps, and I’ll post the next part to you.
Walter
On Nov 19, 2008, at 2:55 PM, Robin Stark wrote:
Thank you, Walter. No, I don’t expect these people to be spamming the sign-up list. It will only be up for a couple of weeks and they are all Rotarians who never do anything mischievous. Other people could, of course, but I’m hoping they won’t find it in two weeks.
My page is set up here: http://bellevuerotary.net/signups/bellringing/
On Nov 19, 2008, at 12:01 PM, Walter Lee Davis wrote:
Great. You are in a fine place, then. Don’t worry, we’ll take this a step at a time.
You will be using a plain text file for your database, and a single form on one page to update everything. The first step will be to set up the form so that this will be simple to process. We’ll get to the rest in a while. From the looks of things, and from your initial message, there won’t be much need for a complex error-checking system. Can you presume that everyone will behave themselves and not register M. & M. Mouse for the noon shift?
I would lay this page out using a table drawn with the table tool. Draw a table with 4 columns and as many rows as you want to have time slots, some cellpadding to keep things from crashing together, and no borders.
In the first column, add your labels for the time slots. In the second column, don’t put anything yet. In the third column, add your text fields for names. Using the third tab from the left of the Inspector, name these fields as follows:
names[1][] names[1][]
names[2][] names[2][]
names[3][] names[3][]
and so forth, changing the index number upward for each. The first pair of square brackets establishes the time slot key, the second establishes the id of that field. By leaving the second pair blank, you tell the Web server to treat it as an automatically-indexed array. This keeps you from having to name every single field in the form uniquely, and match it up with a similar handler on the processing script.
In the last column, add a single Submit button to each row. You won’t need to do anything special with these, they will all just submit the entire form.
When you have this part finished, post it somewhere that we can review it, and we’ll get on to the next stage.
Walter
On Nov 19, 2008, at 11:31 AM, Robin Stark wrote:
PHP 5.2.6 and safe_mode is off.
This has to be easy, Walter, really easy. Not Walter Lee Davis easy, but Shirley the Sheep easy. I am capable of tweaking code and changing settings AND following very precise instructions. I’m getting sweaty palms already. I was actually on the Dynamo list for a while, but I could only READ the emails, not UNDERSTAND any of it.
On Nov 19, 2008, at 9:06 AM, Walter Lee Davis wrote:
Wow. That’s going to be a real headache to make and maintain. If you’re used to using FTG, then you must have PHP on your server. Can you make a little test file and find out what version? I have a couple of ideas you could try, but the precise implementation would depend on the version of PHP you have at hand.
Use a plain-text editor like TextWrangler or BBEdit or TextMate (or Apple TextEdit in plain-text mode) and create a new file. Paste the following code block into it:
<?php >>>>>>> phpinfo(); >>>>>>> ?>(If you’re viewing this in Mail, don’t include the row of tildes on either side.)
Save this file with some cryptic name that ends in .php, like asdfasdf.php, and upload it to your server somewhere. Visit this page with a web browser, and make note of the major and minor version of PHP (big type near the top) and also search for the term safe_mode and see if it is on or off. (There will be two settings for this property — global and local — note them both.)
Armed with this info, fire back to the list. Perhaps even consider posting this on the Dynamo list, where large blobs of code go relatively unchallenged. As complex as this form looks, I think the actual solution will be fairly elegant and will also teach you something. The method you propose will be a hard slog, will probably work okay, but will be incredibly difficult to make work in a meaningful manner.
Walter
On Nov 19, 2008, at 9:35 AM, Robin Stark wrote:
I have no scripting skills or knowledge of MySQL or anything that a normal person would probably use to do this thing that I want to do, but this is what I want to do and how I propose to do it. If there is another way for a person of my limited skills to do this, I would be happy to hear about it.
I want to build a page where people can sign up to volunteer for different shifts on an activity. There are 8 time slots throughout the day for two days, e.g., Sunday, 10:00am-12:00pm. I want them to fill in their names in the form fields and click submit for any shift they want. That means I would need the multiple forms action.
I will have each shift listed with an iFrame next to it displaying a text file that will be written to by Forms To Go, after they fill in their names and click the submit button by the appropriate shift. After they click submit, the redirect page will thank them and give them a link to return to the sign-up page, which will, hopefully, refresh the page so that the newly updated text file for that shift will be displayed. If not, I will also have instructions to refresh the browser page if their names don’t show up.
It means many text files and many form processors, and that’s okay, as long as it works. This is a rough image of what I’m thinking:
Robin Stark
Robin Stark Web Flunky www.webflunky.com
Instant Messaging: GoogleTalk: email@hidden iChat: email@hidden
Robin
Okay, here we go.
Next step is to print the names who have signed up already into the table. Click into the first empty cell in the table so you have a text cursor. Type a space, then from the main menu, choose Insert / Markup Item.
In the dialog that appears, paste the following:
<?php echo $names_1; ?>
Okay the dialog, and type another space. Select all the text in the cell, and apply one of your text styles to it (otherwise, markup items take on the default text style, which is only rarely your desired look).
Finally, copy all of this to the clipboard, and paste it into each of the other cells. Click on each of the markup items in turn, select Item / Modify from the menu, and increment the numbers so you have 1 - 24 where they belong.
Publish your page.
Now, we make some tiny changes to the data.php script. Scroll all the way to the bottom, and comment out the line that begins with pre_print. (To comment out a line in PHP, use two forward slashes at the beginning. Here’s the rest of the changes:
//pre_print($names);
$fields = range(1,24);
foreach($fields as $f){
$field_name = 'names_' . $f;
if(array_key_exists($f,$names)){
${$field_name} = implode('<br />',$names[$f]);
}else{
${$field_name} = '';
}
}
Save the changes, and preview your page. You should see a neat listing of names in the table, and the typewriter-text business at the top of the page will be gone.
Tomorrow, we send mail. That adds maybe three more lines to the script. You’ve got to admit, this is quite a bit simpler than poking around with 24 iframes on one page.
Walter On Nov 20, 2008, at 1:02 PM, Robin Stark wrote:
I asked Walter some questions off the list and included his answer below. I have followed his instructions and it’s working as it should.
http://bellevuerotary.net/signups/bellringing/
Two more steps to go!
Freeway user since 1997
Very cool. I added the mark-ups and edited the data.php file. Everything is working. Yes, this is much easier than 24 iFrames! I’m ready to mail!
http://bellevuerotary.net/signups/bellringing/
On Nov 20, 2008, at 6:44 PM, Walter Lee Davis wrote:
Tomorrow, we send mail. That adds maybe three more lines to the script. You’ve got to admit, this is quite a bit simpler than poking around with 24 iframes on one page.
Robin Stark
Robin
All right. I just spotted an error in my previous code, I wasn’t properly dealing with backslashes. The final loop needs to be modified slightly — here’s the corrected version:
foreach($fields as $f){
$field_name = 'names_' . $f;
if(array_key_exists($f,$names)){
${$field_name} = implode('<br />',array_map('h',$names[$f]));
}else{
${$field_name} = '';
}
}
That array_map() function applies the cleanup function h() to each member of the names array before setting the variables, so you don’t need to change anything in your page.
Now, to send mail. Sending mail itself is very simple. We could simply send a message that says to the administrator(s) “Go check the site!”. But if we set up a variable containing all of the times and locations, then we can send a complete message of Whom signed up for What.
Here’s the updated data.php file: http://pastie.org/320602
Changes are as follows:
New variables up at the top to define the names of the other two fields (email and phone) and to set the e-mail address that the notification should go to. These need to be adjusted to fit your form and admin.
Really tall array containing all of the times and locations, copied and pasted out of your HTML — check through and make sure each one is complete and correct. Is Downstairs really Nordstrom: Downstairs, for example?
New notify() function that stitches together a message and sends it. This is structured to send a single e-mail per person. We could also make it concatenate all signups into a single (larger) e-mail, but I expect that it will work just fine this way for your most common use- case (one person signing up for one time slot).
New variable to insert into your page: $message. Draw a Markup Item somewhere on your page, and insert this code:
<?php echo $message; ?>
When someone successfully registers for a time slot, they will see this message after the page refreshes. This will (hopefully) keep them from pressing the button over and over.
Questions? Snags? Let me know.
Walter
On Nov 21, 2008, at 7:35 AM, Robin Stark wrote:
Very cool. I added the mark-ups and edited the data.php file. Everything is working. Yes, this is much easier than 24 iFrames! I’m ready to mail!
Freeway user since 1997
It’s great! It works. I got the email and the Thanks message. It’s perfect. I have made a file of all these instructions, and will attempt to use this for other similar sign-up pages, which minor modifications (things in pink in Text Wrangler). I will keep the original data.php so I can return to it if I screw up anything.
I can’t thank you enough for all your time on this, Walter. This is by far the best sign-up page I’ve ever created. Nary an iFrame in sight.
On Nov 21, 2008, at 8:55 AM, Walter Lee Davis wrote:
All right. I just spotted an error in my previous code, I wasn’t properly dealing with backslashes. The final loop needs to be modified slightly — here’s the corrected version:
foreach($fields as $f){ $field_name = ‘names_’ . $f; if(array_key_exists($f,$names)){ ${$field_name} = implode(‘<br />’,array_map(‘h’,$names[$f])); }else{ ${$field_name} = ”; } }
That array_map() function applies the cleanup function h() to each member of the names array before setting the variables, so you don’t need to change anything in your page.
Now, to send mail. Sending mail itself is very simple. We could simply send a message that says to the administrator(s) “Go check the site!”. But if we set up a variable containing all of the times and locations, then we can send a complete message of Whom signed up for What.
Here’s the updated data.php file: http://pastie.org/320602
Changes are as follows:
New variables up at the top to define the names of the other two fields (email and phone) and to set the e-mail address that the notification should go to. These need to be adjusted to fit your form and admin.
Really tall array containing all of the times and locations, copied and pasted out of your HTML — check through and make sure each one is complete and correct. Is Downstairs really Nordstrom: Downstairs, for example?
New notify() function that stitches together a message and sends it. This is structured to send a single e-mail per person. We could also make it concatenate all signups into a single (larger) e-mail, but I expect that it will work just fine this way for your most common use- case (one person signing up for one time slot).
New variable to insert into your page: $message. Draw a Markup Item somewhere on your page, and insert this code:
<?php echo $message; ?>When someone successfully registers for a time slot, they will see this message after the page refreshes. This will (hopefully) keep them from pressing the button over and over.
Questions? Snags? Let me know.
Walter
Robin Stark
Robin
I’m glad it worked out for you. One thing occurred to me after I wrote this, and that’s that we never set the message to an empty string at the beginning. If you were to run the script on a strict server, you would get a warning about a missing variable when the page first loads. Actually, you are getting this warning, and it’s clogging up your errors log file. So go back to pastie and pick up the corrected version, where line 6 has the fix in.
Walter
On Nov 21, 2008, at 11:15 AM, Robin Stark wrote:
It’s great! It works. I got the email and the Thanks message. It’s perfect. I have made a file of all these instructions, and will attempt to use this for other similar sign-up pages, which minor modifications (things in pink in Text Wrangler). I will keep the original data.php so I can return to it if I screw up anything.
Freeway user since 1997
Okay, done. Thank you.
One more question: if someone signs up and can’t make it and I need to take his/her name off, how do I do that? I have been experimenting with the text file and it seems that any change I make, no matter if it’s just changing a letter in one of the names, it ceases to display anything at all on the sign-up page.
On Nov 21, 2008, at 10:36 AM, Walter Lee Davis wrote:
I’m glad it worked out for you. One thing occurred to me after I wrote this, and that’s that we never set the message to an empty string at the beginning. If you were to run the script on a strict server, you would get a warning about a missing variable when the page first loads. Actually, you are getting this warning, and it’s clogging up your errors log file. So go back to pastie and pick up the corrected version, where line 6 has the fix in.
Walter
Robin Stark
Robin
It has something to do with the number of characters in the name. If I move a name, I have to make sure the number before it shows the number of characters, including the space between the first and last name. But, I can’t delete anything. I can, however, add the number of spaces back in, and that works, but if I add another person, there is a blank line between because of the blank spaces I put in, and I’m back into the text file to add the name and change the character number. I’m making this difficult, I know.
On Nov 21, 2008, at 10:52 AM, Robin Stark wrote:
Okay, done. Thank you.
One more question: if someone signs up and can’t make it and I need to take his/her name off, how do I do that? I have been experimenting with the text file and it seems that any change I make, no matter if it’s just changing a letter in one of the names, it ceases to display anything at all on the sign-up page. >
Robin Stark
Robin
Yeah, the serialized data is very tricky. When you remove someone, you also have to adjust the number of elements in the array that held that person. (It will say something like a:5 at the beginning, standing for an array with 5 elements.) Let me give it some thought. There’s probably a way to do this that isn’t too hard. I’m in the middle of something else right now, but maybe in a couple of hours I can take a break.
Walter
On Nov 21, 2008, at 12:12 PM, Robin Stark wrote:
It has something to do with the number of characters in the name. If I move a name, I have to make sure the number before it shows the number of characters, including the space between the first and last name. But, I can’t delete anything. I can, however, add the number of spaces back in, and that works, but if I add another person, there is a blank line between because of the blank spaces I put in, and I’m back into the text file to add the name and change the character number. I’m making this difficult, I know.
Freeway user since 1997
No, Walter, don’t do anything more. You’re right, it is the number after the a: (array, duh). It’s not going to happen that often, and now that I know how to change it to the number of people, this is good enough — MORE than good enough. Thank you so very much.
On Nov 21, 2008, at 11:25 AM, Walter Lee Davis wrote:
Yeah, the serialized data is very tricky. When you remove someone, you also have to adjust the number of elements in the array that held that person. (It will say something like a:5 at the beginning, standing for an array with 5 elements.) Let me give it some thought. There’s probably a way to do this that isn’t too hard. I’m in the middle of something else right now, but maybe in a couple of hours I can take a break.
Walter
Robin Stark
Robin
