Hi Shiva Appreciate your input. Wrt the spanning of the form, I think, in my situation, it would actually make things worse... You see, my suspicion is that most of the users who are experiencing problems, have very bad connections, many complain that they lose connectivity while they are busy with the form ( it takes them maybe 30 min or so to fill out the entire form ( they basically transfer the data off paper forms they have filled out earlier while "on-site", so it's not really alot of data, but there are a lot of fields...) So, my fear with this approach is that they will maybe get past the first part of the form, submit that OK, then start getting trouble with subsequent parts, leaving me with a whole lot of partial entries in the DB., and how do I get them to "resume" at a a later stage? You don't understand the mindset of these people, when something goes wrong, they'll switch off their PC's and try to start from scratch, so it's going to be difficult to try and get them to understand the concept of multi-part forms... I shudder to even think what will happen, or worse, how I will be able to allow them to make corrections on a certain part of the form once they have submit it. And sometimes, to their defense, it's not them that want to change the details on the form, but the subject of the form who has decided to change their name etc...
I'm not ditching this idea, I will definitely give it some more thought, it's just at this moment, my mind is running through my original idea of PDF forms trying to evaluate it. Each method will have it's pro's and cons, and I'll have to go and weigh them. I must add, I don't see "effort" as a con for a particular solution, as long as I know it will solve the problem without adding other cons... Thanks again, will take it up with you again ( need some more input on this PDF thing to get some balanced views) PS, if you have experience with using this method, I would appreciate it if you could let me have your "field notes" and how successfull it's working for you. You see, the main thing here is that I need to KNOW when someone who says they have submitted something actually have, and that they are not trying their luck... On Tue, 2003-07-01 at 13:43, Shivanischal A wrote: > hi, > > seems u have complicated task on hand mate. cant u simply consider span the > user input over multiple pages? i mean using 2 or more form on different > pages instead of a single form on one single page. if this cant be done, > we'll think of other measures. but this is by far the most simple method > > -shiva > > > "Petre Agenbag" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message > news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Hi List > > > > OK, firstly, sorry if this has been on the list before... > > > > What I'd like to do is something like this: > > > > I currently have an app that takes user input via a normal html form, > > and then pops the content into mysql. > > > > The problem is that lots of user complain that the submit times out due > > to slow/bad connections, and hence the data gets lost. > > > > What I was hoping to do now, was to somehow create a PDF form from the > > current html form ( should generate itself on the fly ) , the PDF form > > will obviously need to be downloaded to the user's PC, and will be > > unique for each time they use the system, ie, I don't want to just give > > them a blank template PDF, some of the values need to be > > "auto-completed" and inserted into the form as "read-only", as well as a > > couple of "hidden" fields with identifying values so I can know where to > > pop it into the db. > > > > The idea is that the user will now come to the point where he would > > usually have filled in the html form, but instead, the app must > > autogenerate a PDF with some values auto-completed and/or hidden, and > > the user then downloads the pdf to his/her PC, where they continue to > > fill out the pdf form. > > > > Then, on completetion, I'd like to investigate several delivery > > mechanisms, arguably, the easiest way for the users ( who are mostly > > techno-peasants), is to simply e-mail the pdf as an attachment to me), > > but then I will either have to create an auto-parser for the email > > (prolly difficult and prone to problems with making sure the attachment > > is correct etc), or I will have to then manually process the > > attachments. > > > > Either way, I would need to "feed" the pdf to my app, where the > > form/hidden variables would need to be harvested from the form, and noly > > then (after validation), be entered into the db. > > > > So, simple concept, but I'm sure many pitfalls, the least being probably > > that I have never done this, and don't know where to start, or even if > > it's possible/advisable to follow this route. > > > > Hence my post here... > > > > > > -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
