Editable forms with 1000 elements

[Luke]

Hi! I am new to PHP but I am a very experienced in Perl/CGI/templates.

I work in medical informatics when we deal with very large data
collection forms. Some of them have over 1000 elements! Forms are not
outputted by PHP, they are designed by nurses using various visual HTML
editors /drag & drop/.

Ok, it is relatively easy to get all the fields submitted into the
MySQL server. But there is always a chance of a data entry error or a
form has to be printable (as it looks when being filled out, with all
visual elements). It means we have to retrieve all values and present
them on the screen (ready to be resubmitted).

So I wonder what would experienced PHP users do here. Are there any
special Classes/modules that would take an html file and insert the
values into corresponding <input> elements? Or anything what could make
my life easier?

Or is it really the only way to get it worked to place 1000 <?php echo
"value=$value" ?> inserts in my HTML code?

That's a VERY TEDIOUS WORK!!!

Thanks,
Luke

[Alan Little]

Carved in mystic runes upon the very living rock, the last words of Luke
of comp.lang.php make plain:

I work in medical informatics when we deal with very large data
collection forms. Some of them have over 1000 elements!

But there is always a chance of a data entry error or a form has to be
printable (as it looks when being filled out, with all visual
elements). It means we have to retrieve all values and present them on
the screen (ready to be resubmitted).

Or is it really the only way to get it worked to place 1000 <?php
echo "value=$value" ?> inserts in my HTML code?

Parse out the INPUT tags, set or replace their VALUE attributes, then
replace the tag in the HTML. There's an HTML parser in Hololib:

ftp://ftp.holotech.net/hololib.zip

--
Alan Little
Phorm PHP Form Processor
http://www.phorm.com/

[Erwin Moller]

Luke wrote:

Hi! I am new to PHP but I am a very experienced in Perl/CGI/templates.

I work in medical informatics when we deal with very large data
collection forms. Some of them have over 1000 elements! Forms are not
outputted by PHP, they are designed by nurses using various visual HTML
editors /drag & drop/.

Ok, it is relatively easy to get all the fields submitted into the
MySQL server. But there is always a chance of a data entry error or a
form has to be printable (as it looks when being filled out, with all
visual elements). It means we have to retrieve all values and present
them on the screen (ready to be resubmitted).

So I wonder what would experienced PHP users do here. Are there any
special Classes/modules that would take an html file and insert the
values into corresponding <input> elements? Or anything what could make
my life easier?

Or is it really the only way to get it worked to place 1000 <?php echo
"value=$value" ?> inserts in my HTML code?

That's a VERY TEDIOUS WORK!!!
Hi Luke,

That question is hard to answer without knowing the underlying datastructure
(databaseschema).

Are all the elements text?
Do you need SELECT-boxes too? Or radiobuttons? etc.
All need a special way to handle (But not complex).

If you only have textelements I would approach it like this:

If you have some tables like:
[psuedocode]
CREATE TABLE tblelements(
elementid SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
formid integer REFERENCES tblform(formid),
elementname text,
elementvalue text
)

CREATE TABLE tblform(
formid SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
fromname text
)

[/pseudocode]

Now you can produce easily an automated form like:
(I only use Postgres, so you'll have to translate this to mysql yourself)
[pseudocode like ADODB]

<?
// which form?
$wantedFormid = 12;
?>

<form action="receiveform.php" METHOD="POST">
<input type="hidden" name="formid" value="<?= $wantedFormid ?>">
<table border=1>
<?
$SQL = "SELECT elementid, elementname, elementvalue FROM tblelements WHERE";
$SQL.= " (formid=$wantedFormid);";
$RS = $connection->Execute($SQL)->getArray();
$numrows=count($RS);
for($i=0;$i<$numrows;$i++){
$row=$RS[$i];
?>
<tr>
<td>
<?= $row["elementname"] ?>
</td>
<td>
<input type="text" name="elementid<?= $row["elementid"] ?>"
value="<?= htmlentities($row["elementvalue"]) ?>">
</td>
</tr>
<?
}
?>
<tr>
<td colspan=2>
<input type="submit">
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</form>

[/pseudocode]

(not tested)

For more complex sturctures, like radiobuttons, you need of course
additional tables.
Thanks,
Luke

Hope this helped.

Regards,
Erwin Moller

[Luke]

Hello guys! Thank you for your posts!

Life is not so easy... forms include all possible HTML elements (text,
radio, select, textarea, lists) so the parsing would have to be more
sophisticated. I'll look at your examples.

Keep in mind, that forms all already designed, so I can not output the
entire forms/tables/html [like in one of your examples]! Forms always
have to look the same (while filling out/editing/printing).

Also, since it was all designed by drag and drop tools, HTML is
horrible! single <input> element takes about 5 lines /tons of styles
and javascript/

Any other ideas folks?

Luke

[Jerry Stuckle]

Luke wrote:

Hello guys! Thank you for your posts!
Keep in mind, that forms all already designed, so I can not output the
entire forms/tables/html [like in one of your examples]! Forms always
have to look the same (while filling out/editing/printing).

But forms will NEVER "look the same". HTML is a recommendation to the browser,
not an absolute command. Different browsers can display it differently; even
the same browser can display it differently depending on the options you set.

And printing? Not a chance if guaranteeing it will look the same.

--
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js*******@attglobal.net
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[Erwin Moller]

Luke wrote:

Hello guys! Thank you for your posts!

Life is not so easy... forms include all possible HTML elements (text,
radio, select, textarea, lists) so the parsing would have to be more
sophisticated. I'll look at your examples.

Keep in mind, that forms all already designed, so I can not output the
entire forms/tables/html [like in one of your examples]! Forms always
have to look the same (while filling out/editing/printing).

Also, since it was all designed by drag and drop tools, HTML is
horrible! single <input> element takes about 5 lines /tons of styles
and javascript/

Any other ideas folks?

Luke

OMG...
Sounds you are stuck with a poorly designed solution.
(Me feels sorry for you.)

If I understand you right you want to insert all values in the form.
Also selected radio-options/checkboxes/etc.
How the form is builded is unknown.
The values are stored on some database.
Your goal is to show a forms with their values set?

Is this right?

What MIGHT help you is a approach like this:

(This assumes you are able to get a value for a question from the database
if you get the formname and the elementname)

1) Via JS you can loop over a form and retieve all elements AND their names.
2) Make code that branches for all possible formelementtypes.
3) Use AJAX to retrieve the value for that option by sending the name of the
form and the name of the formelement
4) Let the receiving script (The ajax-part on the surver) retieve the value
from the database and return it.
In case of multiple options you have to make up your own dataformat, with
comma's or something.
5) When the HTTPXMLOBJECT gets the answer, use it to set the right
options/values in the script.

I think such a solution might be easier than trying to parse an awefull
constructed HTML-page that contains the form.

If you are unfamiliar with AJAX, it is easy to learn.
A good startingpoint: http://www.w3schools.com/ajax

If your form contains 1000 elements, a straightforward approach would also
require 1000 requests to the server, possibly making this solution
extremely slow.

just my 2 cent.

Regards,
Erwin Moller

[Luke]

Jerry, they look fine with a little browser margin adjustments, I
checked. Also, a lot of styles in the code (html file weights over 1MB)
helps.

Anyway, printing and layout is not a concern here. Just how to place
efficently 1000 values in it.

Luke

[Luke]

Hi Erwin!

You said "poor design". Did you mean HTML design out our
precess/workflow design?
How would you approach this problem (1000elements, editable)?

Is this right?

Yes!

As for AJAX. I read about it and played with it for a while. However I
don't think that this would be a good solution here. I agree with you
that this would be extremely slow. And when would I call this function?
On page OnLoad? Also, we usually have a "reset" button which cancel all
changes made /easy to mess up with 1000 elements on a form/. With AJAX
this button would have to send another 1000 requests to go back to
defaults.

Frankly, I would prefer a server side solution. Still believe someone
may have a great idea. Waiting!

Regards,
Luke

[Erwin Moller]

Luke wrote:

Hi Erwin!

Hi Luke,
You said "poor design". Did you mean HTML design out our
precess/workflow design?
Both I guess.
Imagine you could set up this system from scratch: Would you have come up
with what you have on your hands now?
Probably not. You would design a nice database where all possible answers
would be stored for all different questiontypes (radio, text, check, etc)
in such a way you can easily retrieve them.

But I do not know how this is implemented at the moment, you only told us
about the HTML-mess, not about the database that stores the answers/values.

How would you approach this problem (1000elements, editable)?
I wouldn't: Weekend starting now. :P

Seriously, I would be extremely tempted to discuss the situation with the
owners of the system and suggest a complete redesign.

If that is impossible, well, my (wild) guess is that a serversidesolution is
most attractive, but you'll have to come up with some smart
routines/regexpr/whatever that will:
1) find all elementtypes in the form
2) Retrieve their values from a database.
3) insert the right code in the HTML at the right place.
This might be easy for:
<input type="text" name="firstName" value="">

but for options in a selectbox, you'll have to traverse through them and
insert SELECTED at the right places.

This will become increasingly difficult if the HTML is all screwed up
because it was generated by WYSIWYG and drag and drop like programs.

Sounds like something that could give you a good headache, but it is of
course possible (if all the HTML is legal).
Alternatively, why not start thinking from the backend, the database?
You have a databse that stores the value/selections/etc.
Maybe it is easier to create a basic template that is based on that.
Of course you would loose all your HTML-layout and fall back to a general
presentationtype.

Is this right?

Yes!

As for AJAX. I read about it and played with it for a while. However I
don't think that this would be a good solution here. I agree with you
that this would be extremely slow. And when would I call this function?
On page OnLoad? Also, we usually have a "reset" button which cancel all
changes made /easy to mess up with 1000 elements on a form/. With AJAX
this button would have to send another 1000 requests to go back to
defaults.

Frankly, I would prefer a server side solution. Still believe someone
may have a great idea. Waiting!

Regards,
Luke

Best of luck, Luke.
Maybe somebody comes up with a briliant solution in the weekend. :-)

Regards,
Erwin Moller

[tim]

Luke wrote:

Hello guys! Thank you for your posts!

Life is not so easy... forms include all possible HTML elements (text,
radio, select, textarea, lists) so the parsing would have to be more
sophisticated. I'll look at your examples.

Keep in mind, that forms all already designed, so I can not output the
entire forms/tables/html [like in one of your examples]! Forms always
have to look the same (while filling out/editing/printing).
http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/php/2006...ill-forms.html
It can refill input textarea and checkboxe formsfields and I found it
very easy to use. Not sure about its support for drop down lists.

Also, since it was all designed by drag and drop tools, HTML is
horrible! single <input> element takes about 5 lines /tons of styles
and javascript/

This complexity could be a problem for the the autofill script as it
uses a few complex regular expressions.

If the regexes aren't flexible enough it may not cope with mulitline
tags and complex html, it worked well witht he simple examples I have
used it for though.

Tim

[Luke]

Thanks Tim!

I just found a great Perl module which does the job! All form elements
supported!

http://search.cpan.org/~tjmather/HTM.../FillInForm.pm

[it's an actual web page, not a file]

I just checked it and it works like a charm! Keeps all styles and
input's javascripts (there are onchange, onblur, onfocus, ... for each
input)

I hope that the PHP stuff you sent is able to do the same job! I am
about to check it out. Otherwise it will be my another Perl/CGI project
and I will never swich to PHP!!! :-)

Regards,
Luke

[Luke]

Hello Erwin!

I understand what you're saying and I agree with you. Yet I doubt if it
could work that way. We don't have 20 people that could work on this
project. Database structure is to be designed by me and I wish I could
design a very good structure but... not given several forms like this a
month! There is just not enough time to create a framework/structure
cabable of storing all dropdown values in a table(s). I do realize the
drawbacks of my approach (female=1, male=2 , what if that changes in
the future?) but I'm in charge of this project and it's my
responsibility to take care of that. We've had some Perl/CGI portals in
production for a few years and that was never an issue.
Fortunately, once a form is designed It's not likely that it will
change (since all of this forms have been in use for years as the paper
ones. They are standarized and approved by many organizations). This
project is just bigger that than others we've done so far and might be
the first one to go with PHP.

I consider myself an advanced Perl programmer and I have written
hundreds of scripts helping me with parsing HTML. But then is a
validation/testing stage and the more complex the structure, the more
time it takes. I have enough work with just naming those fields, what I
get from the clinical folks is a list of field names: F1, F2, F3,
F1000. And no script will help me to come up with some reasonable
html/database names. Then goes javascripts, CGI processing, and so on.
1000 fields means:

1000 html names, 1000 sql names, 1000 javascript checks, 1000 cgi
variables, 1000 server-side validations,...

As I wrote I found a great Perl module which does the job with filling
in a form:

http://search.cpan.org/~tjmather/HTM.../FillInForm.pm

I hope there is a PHP equivalent of that!

Best regards and thanks!
Luke

[Jerry Stuckle]

Luke wrote:

Jerry, they look fine with a little browser margin adjustments, I
checked. Also, a lot of styles in the code (html file weights over 1MB)
helps.

Anyway, printing and layout is not a concern here. Just how to place
efficently 1000 values in it.

Luke

Luke,

And what happens if you increase the font size (like my poor ailing eyes need)?
Or if the user wants to decrease the font size to get more in the window?

And did you check in multiple browsers?

--
==================
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Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
js*******@attglobal.net
==================

[Luke]

Jerry,

We use a fancy HTML/form editor and the output forms have zoom in/out
button! That's a heavy javascript stuff but it works fine! There is
also a "print" button, which switches the form to another view. Of
course it can be hacked, even by a nurse!

Moreover, we are able to convert our forms to PDF format and this is
what we use for printing (much better than PDF, especially when dealing
with "disabled" HTML elements). But those PDF can not be used for
submitting data.

As I said we have a solution for printing, we just need a good support
for editing.

Regards,
Luke

[Drakazz]

All of this thread doesn't make any sense to me :O

So what is the problem you're dealing with, Luke?

Ok, so if you want to generate forms that owuld show errors, it is not
very complicated thing to do.
I am quite annoyed by only five fields, and here - thousand!!!

By simple means, you create an array, where you'd have each field info
and priority etc., and even regex validation or something, maybe a
callback in order to validate each field - your choice.

So what you'd do might look like this:

$elements=array();
$elements[]=array("name"=>"test_done","type"=>"check","defaul t"=>false);
$elements[]=array("name"=>"done_tests","type"=>"select_multi" ,"values"=>array("one","two"),"default"=>array(0,1 ));

This seems complex, and yet it is.

I might build a form creator and validator in a while.
Basically, when the form is submitted, you check for the all values, if
they're set. If it's not set, then use the default (for checkboxes),
and use the same array, and set element's "value" key to whatever value
it should be.

Complex :}

[Luke]

Drakazz,

It's simple! I want to try to avoid 1000 <?php "value=$value" ?>
inserts in my HTML code!
Does your solution meet my requirements?

I do have the array [form_element => value] of size of 1000. How to put
those values into HTML page efficiently? That's the question!

Luke

[Jerry Stuckle]

Luke wrote:

Jerry,

We use a fancy HTML/form editor and the output forms have zoom in/out
button! That's a heavy javascript stuff but it works fine! There is
also a "print" button, which switches the form to another view. Of
course it can be hacked, even by a nurse!

Moreover, we are able to convert our forms to PDF format and this is
what we use for printing (much better than PDF, especially when dealing
with "disabled" HTML elements). But those PDF can not be used for
submitting data.

As I said we have a solution for printing, we just need a good support
for editing.

Regards,
Luke

OK, but there are still problems - like if javascript it turned off. Just to
let you know - other than a PDF you'll never be able to say it exactly what it
will look like on my browser.

Back to your original question - how to avoid 1000

<?php "value=$value" ?>

Have all your info in an array in PHP and use a loop to generate the HTML, i.e.

foreach ($mydata as $value) {
echo "<INPUT name=data[] value=%value>";
}

Of course, you'll have other things in there also - table tags or whatever.

When they submit the form, the result will be in $_POST['data'] (assuming your
posting the form), which will be an array of 1000 values.
--
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js*******@attglobal.net
==================

[Luke]

Jerry! The forms are way too complex to be generated by PHP!!!! This is
impossible!!!!

A single HTML file has over 1MB, a lot of nested tables, sections,
hidden elements, Javascripts and styles!

Keep In mind that the forms are filled out mostly by nurses. When
you're filling it out /form looks as designed with an HTML editor/ and
edititing later (values retrieved from the database) it has to look the
same!!! Otherwise I will have dozens of complains, that this is a
different form!!!

Tim sent me a link to "OnLamp" web page and my first tests show that
the code works fine, as I wanted. I'll do more checks very soon!

Thanks and Regards,
Luke

[Drakazz]

Ok, Jerry your code is very out of the level.

Luke: Does your PHP app actually update the DB fields already, and all
you need is static page generation or something?

HTML file weighting over 1MB is big, and you may not be able to change
a lot there!
I suggest the best way of doing this is to split up the sections and
update records in that way, allowing simple paging for each record.
So you have different sections (HTML pages) which simply are smaller
and easier to edit if there's any problems.
As I do not know what really you want I am not very ito this :|

If forms are too complex for PHP, you might be wrong!
Usage of OOP PHP would allow you to do any size ap-plications, with a
lot of work but then you get a good database relation ship generator
of soem kind.
Not very sure! :(

[Jerry Stuckle]

Luke wrote:

Jerry! The forms are way too complex to be generated by PHP!!!! This is
impossible!!!!

A single HTML file has over 1MB, a lot of nested tables, sections,
hidden elements, Javascripts and styles!

Keep In mind that the forms are filled out mostly by nurses. When
you're filling it out /form looks as designed with an HTML editor/ and
edititing later (values retrieved from the database) it has to look the
same!!! Otherwise I will have dozens of complains, that this is a
different form!!!

Tim sent me a link to "OnLamp" web page and my first tests show that
the code works fine, as I wanted. I'll do more checks very soon!

Thanks and Regards,
Luke

In that case you're pretty much stuck with 1000 echo statements.

--
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js*******@attglobal.net
==================

[Jerry Stuckle]

Drakazz wrote:

Ok, Jerry your code is very out of the level.

Luke: Does your PHP app actually update the DB fields already, and all
you need is static page generation or something?

HTML file weighting over 1MB is big, and you may not be able to change
a lot there!
I suggest the best way of doing this is to split up the sections and
update records in that way, allowing simple paging for each record.
So you have different sections (HTML pages) which simply are smaller
and easier to edit if there's any problems.
As I do not know what really you want I am not very ito this :|

If forms are too complex for PHP, you might be wrong!
Usage of OOP PHP would allow you to do any size ap-plications, with a
lot of work but then you get a good database relation ship generator
of soem kind.
Not very sure! :(

What do you mean? It's similar to code I've successfully used in hundreds of pages.

--
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[Luke]

Hi Drakazz!

Ok there is a static web page designed by a nurse. You can use it to
submit data to database - that's trivial. But what if a nurse made a
mistake while entering data and has to edit a value /correct/? She
wants to pull out the same page, but with all the values she previously
submitted in.

We don't need to spilt the file into a smaller ones. This is done by
heavy javascripting. Using <DIV> only one page is presented at a time,
then you click "next" and javascript jumps to another page /no server
request here/.

This would be very difficult to have all html done by PHP. If you don't
believe I might send you a sample form. Pease believe me, besides I
don't have time for this kind of design, my role is to integrate forms
I get with web/database servers.

Regards,
Luke

[Luke]

Not necessarily! So far so good and FillInFormValues works fine!

That's what I wanted! Thank you guys!!!!
Luke

[Tim Van Wassenhove]

On 2006-05-19, Luke <no******@o2.pl> wrote:

Jerry! The forms are way too complex to be generated by PHP!!!! This is
impossible!!!!

So why are you asking us about it in comp.lang.php then?

--
Met vriendelijke groeten,
Tim Van Wassenhove <http://timvw.madoka.be>

[Luke]

Read, read, read!

I wanted to know if there is a PHP tool that can fill them in! Makes
sense now?

Luke

[Richard Levasseur]

Not to be mean or troll, but honestly, I have to say that this whole
project is being designed horribly. In the future you should seriously
consider trying to rein in the project (as well as what sounds like
your workload) a bit more. At least so you don't have to post-process
a megabyte of text.

Using javascript to paginate 1000 fields? (Heavy javascript isn't
reliable and is a maintainence nightmare)
Submitting 1000 fields at once? (Overloading the user with data,
potential for a lot of lost time when a crash happens, having to
process so much at once)
Having to post process a 1MB file to change raw html? ( o.O !?!? )

It sounds like you're hacking together a solution for every project.

Great, that works, but you'd be better served by developing some sort
of personal library that would be able to solve reoccuring problems
like this in the future.

And I pray for my nurse who has to load this javascript laden malformed
megabyte of text into their Internet Explorer on the Pentium 2 they're
stuck with. Does reveal a bit more about the failings of our
healthcare system, though.

[Luke]

Richard,

I don't write this javascript! This is done automatically by our form
designer! This is software for $$$$! We have never had a single problem
with our forms, so 1Mb html, or tons od JavaScript is not an issue
here! It works perfectly!

Of course this could have been done better. Just hire 20
programmers/developers/web designers and let them work on one form for
3 months. What we have instead is just 1-2 guys and a dozens of forms
which work fine. I used to do it in CGI/Perl (no single data entry
problem in last few years), now I'd like to try with PHP.

That's it. Once we have a PHP framework, it will be easy to apply it to
any new form.

Regards,
Luke

[Jerry Stuckle]

Luke wrote:

Richard,

I don't write this javascript! This is done automatically by our form
designer! This is software for $$$$! We have never had a single problem
with our forms, so 1Mb html, or tons od JavaScript is not an issue
here! It works perfectly!

Of course this could have been done better. Just hire 20
programmers/developers/web designers and let them work on one form for
3 months. What we have instead is just 1-2 guys and a dozens of forms
which work fine. I used to do it in CGI/Perl (no single data entry
problem in last few years), now I'd like to try with PHP.

That's it. Once we have a PHP framework, it will be easy to apply it to
any new form.

Regards,
Luke

20 programmers on one form for three months! ROFLMAO!

One competent programmer could probably do your "dozens of forms" in less time
than this thread has been going on. And it would be done right.

--
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JDS Computer Training Corp.
js*******@attglobal.net
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[Luke]

Jerry, it's a pity you'll never see them... then you would stop
dreaming. As I said this is $$$$ software /form designer /. Forms don't
just need to contain HTML elements, they must look VERY decent, since
people with no computer background will use them!

I can tell you that you would't find simple html tags in the code. Each
tag is at least 3 lines (filled with styles and html events you usually
don't need /like onBlur/), of course it's horrible when you look at it,
but it works very good!

Also, If you ever worked with nurses/physicians you would know how it
goes. Initially we tried do everything by ourselves. Then we were happy
to let them do it since it was getting a nightmare.

Regards,
Luke

[Jerry Stuckle]

Luke wrote:

Jerry, it's a pity you'll never see them... then you would stop
dreaming. As I said this is $$$$ software /form designer /. Forms don't
just need to contain HTML elements, they must look VERY decent, since
people with no computer background will use them!

I can tell you that you would't find simple html tags in the code. Each
tag is at least 3 lines (filled with styles and html events you usually
don't need /like onBlur/), of course it's horrible when you look at it,
but it works very good!

Also, If you ever worked with nurses/physicians you would know how it
goes. Initially we tried do everything by ourselves. Then we were happy
to let them do it since it was getting a nightmare.

Regards,
Luke

Yep, and someone good with CSS styles could cut each of those to 1/2 a line.
And it would look just as good or better than anything your fancy designer
created. Be more functional, also.

Sure it's $$$$ software. You seem to think that since it cost a lot of money
it's great software. From the sound of the code it generates, however, I
wouldn't give it the time of day.

But since you're so proud of your form designer, why are you even asking
questions here? This is a group for PHP programmers.

--
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js*******@attglobal.net
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[Luke]

1. The software allows non-computer persons to generate/design forms
very quickly. This is what it's supposed to do. HTML quality is not an
issue here (but I can assure you it works fine with
IE/NN/FF/Opera/Safari). Of course it (html) could have been simpler and
neater. But this would have required a few persons working on it. You
can't beat a nurse (being able to create one from with 500 elements in
a 1-2 hours) with PHP, sorry! And it does not mean that PHP is bad!

2. If you go back, you'll see that I asked a PHP related question. I
didin't ask how to design a form with PHP, but how to work with a form
designed with a WYSIWYG editor. And I got my answer.

Luke

[Jerry Stuckle]

Luke wrote:

1. The software allows non-computer persons to generate/design forms
very quickly. This is what it's supposed to do. HTML quality is not an
issue here (but I can assure you it works fine with
IE/NN/FF/Opera/Safari). Of course it (html) could have been simpler and
neater. But this would have required a few persons working on it. You
can't beat a nurse (being able to create one from with 500 elements in
a 1-2 hours) with PHP, sorry! And it does not mean that PHP is bad!

2. If you go back, you'll see that I asked a PHP related question. I
didin't ask how to design a form with PHP, but how to work with a form
designed with a WYSIWYG editor. And I got my answer.

Luke

Super.

Pretty soon we won't need nurses. After all, a computer can tell anyone just
how much medication to administer. So what if it's 5cc instead of .5cc. It works.

The point here is - you've shown in this thread your disdain for programmers.
Fine. Don't bother asking programmers questions then, either. We aren't here
just for your convenience.

--
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
js*******@attglobal.net
==================

[Luke]

Jerry Stuckle wrote:

Pretty soon we won't need nurses. After all, a computer can tell anyone just
how much medication to administer. So what if it's 5cc instead of .5cc. It works.
why shoudn't it? computers are not supposed to anylyse what we decide
to enter /at least not here/. If one nurse enters ".5cc" another nurse
can pull out this form and see exactly ".5cc". Is it wrong?
The point here is - you've shown in this thread your disdain for programmers.
not true.
Fine. Don't bother asking programmers questions then, either. We aren't here
just for your convenience.

You aren't here to question my work. That's in the first place! And
I'll bother!

Regards,
Luke

[Jerry Stuckle]

Luke wrote:

Jerry Stuckle wrote:

Pretty soon we won't need nurses. After all, a computer can tell anyone just
how much medication to administer. So what if it's 5cc instead of .5cc. It works.

why shoudn't it? computers are not supposed to anylyse what we decide
to enter /at least not here/. If one nurse enters ".5cc" another nurse
can pull out this form and see exactly ".5cc". Is it wrong?

The point here is - you've shown in this thread your disdain for programmers.

not true.

Fine. Don't bother asking programmers questions then, either. We aren't here
just for your convenience.

You aren't here to question my work. That's in the first place! And
I'll bother!

Regards,
Luke

"Of course this could have been done better. Just hire 20
programmers/developers/web designers and let them work on one form for
3 months. What we have instead is just 1-2 guys and a dozens of forms
which work fine. "

I rest my case.

--
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
js*******@attglobal.net
==================

[Richard Levasseur]

What is this form generating software called, anyways? It sounds like
a user-proof WYISWYG editor?