Web form with Spreadsheet-like capabilities

[chevell]

Not sure where this should go, but here goes:

I need a way to have three columns on a web form that can be processed as line items after submission. For instance, I need a field for a list of users, one for a list of their current locations and one for their new locations. Once the form is submitted, I need to process the data like line items in a spreadsheet. Anyone have any idea how to do this?

Alternatively, how easy is it to get FMP to allow a spreadsheet as an attachment and save it locally? I could just have them attach a spreadsheet that can be handled manually. Ideas?

Thanks in advance!

[Reed]

How will they be processed? It's no problem to use IWP to show a table view of a line items file. You can add records to the file using a supported browser. If the processing requires complicated scripts after data entry, you would then need to run the scripts from within FM. If the processing can be accomplished using calculation formulae and summaries, then you can view the results directly in the browser after the records are submitted.

Give me a specific example of what information you need.

Dana

[Garry Claridge]

One method for this type of editing, is to use a Portal. Another method, is to use PHP to process an Array of line-items.

Good Luck.

Garry

[Unable]

Reed, IWP and CWP are not interchangeable and this is a CWP development. There are serious issues with ScriptMaker and the Web. And what is desired here CANNOT be handled with ScriptMaker.

[chevell]

Well, basically, I am thinking that I want to have a web form that creates a *single* record with three fields in it that handle multiple values with carriage returns in them. These three fields would line up so that the first name in the first field and the from in the second field and the to in the last field create a single line item that can be exported to a spreadsheet, or at the very listed, handle as a group. It might just be easier to get the users to make their own spreadsheet and submit it with the form, but I have no idea who to get that to happen either. Thanks for the suggestions.

[Reed]

Why not just have each of the three fields only store one value (no returns)

The three fields could be in a portal on your web page. The user can create one parent record for each session, and then add records to the related table via the portal. The records will be grouped together by virtue of the foreign key.

All of this can be done with IWP. I just tried it (with IWP in FM6 and FM7). Once the web users have entered the data, the records can be exported to any format you like, including a spreadsheet.

You don't need to rely on the limited scriptmaker capabilities of IWP to do this, although I've been playing around with v7, and this seems greatly improved. I'm going to test some things with all 5 users hitting from the web at once to see if it's really multithreaded.

[chevell]

Ok, i think i understand what you're saying, however, I'd have no idea how to accomplish this via HTML/CDML. Do you have a sample? Thanks for your input.

[Reed]

You should look for a .fp5 file called CDML reference. (a tag like [FMP-portal: relationshipname] [/FMP-portal])

I'm not the one to ask about CDML though... I started to look into it and then stopped when I heard that it was going away.

[chevell]

Hmmm, probably not the place to ask this question, but what is replacing CDML? Its so darn easy once you know the tags. I didn't know portals would be in the CDML reference or I would have looked already. Thanks!

[Reed]

FMI is replacing CDML with XML/XSLT. Also CWP will only be available with FMS advanced (should be released late summer) I recall hearing that it will have a CDML/XML converter tool, so that may ease the transisiton.

If you want to stick with a more tag-based language, you could move to Lasso. It will work with filemaker and many other databases.