So I am currently working on this project and I am confused on how to tackle this issue I am having.
I am creating this website that will go behind the scenes and input the data the user is providing us with and checking to see availability on various websites. I am confused on how the logistics of this would work. Would it make more sense to use API's rather than create maybe a bot (I don't even know if this would work) or even if there was a way to code it in myself.
A similar platform to what the general idea behind what operations would be used is vaccines.gov where the system will display the availability of vaccines nearby (a value inputted by user is zipcode). I just need to be pushed in a general direction as I am unsure how to approach this.
Thank you!
At the beggining I'd like to say it's not an emergency :D
I was thinking about project ideas recently. Projects that I could try to create to learn something more, something new or just to leave my comfort zone. I've picked notes app project that support handwritten notes. And here's the first problem, my little knowledge can't come up with idea how to store these handwritten notes in database.
Database or other technologies haven't been picked yet so there is no "How to store it in MySQL?" and so on... just theoretically thinking how it could be done. I was looking in google and here on stackoverflow but didn't get nothing similar, just some questions how to verify or recognize handwritten notes.
Has anybody any idea or lead I could go by?
Here I am assuming your "handwritten notes" are images. A simple solution might be uploading your images somewhere (e.g. Amazon S3, but there are countless options out there). Then, in some database you might have a reference to the URL of the image. In your code you can then download the images using the URL and process them as you see fit.
Note: I am making many assumptions here but I hope this helps.
Thanks in advance for any help offered and patience for my current web-coding experience.
Background:
I'm currently attempting to develop an web based application for my family's business. There is a current version of this system I have developed in C#, however I want to get the system web-based and in the process learn cakephp and the MVC pattern.
Current problem:
I'm currently stuck in a controller that's supposed to take care of a PurchaseTicket. This ticket will have an associated customer, line items, totals etc. I've been trying to develop a basic 'add()' function to the controller however I'm having trouble with the following:
I'm creating a view with everything on it: a button for searching customer, a button to add line items, and a save button. Since I'm used to developing desktop applications, I'm thinking that I might be trying to transfer the same logic to web-based. Is this something that would be recommended or do'able?
I'm running into basic problems like 'searching customer'. From the New Ticket page I'm redirecting to the customer controller, searching and then putting result in session variable or posting it back, but as I continue my process with the rest of the required information, I'm ending up with a bit of "spaghetti" code. Should I do a multi part form? If I do I break the visual design of the application.
Right now I ended up instantiating my PurchaseTicket model and putting it in a session variable. I did this to save intermediate data however I'm not sure if instantiating a Model is conforming to cakephp standards or MVC pattern.
I apologize for the length, this is my first post as a member.
Thanks!
Welcome to Stack Overflow!
So it sounds like there's a few questions, all with pretty open-ended answers. I don't know if this will end up an answer as such, but it's more information than I could put in a comment, so here I go:
First and foremost, if you haven't already, I'd recommend doing the CakePHP Blog Tutorial to get familiar with Cake, before diving straight into a conversion of your existing desktop app.
Second, get familiar with CakePHP's bake console. It will save you a LOT of time if you use it to get started on the web version of your app.
I can't stress how important it is to get a decent grasp of MVC and CakePHP on a small project before trying to tackle something substantial.
Third, the UI for web apps is definitely different to desktop apps. In the case of CakePHP, nothing is 'running' permanently on the server. The entire CakePHP framework gets instantiated, and dies, with every single page request to the server. That can be a tricky concept when transitioning from desktop apps, where everything is stored in memory, and instances of objects can exist for as long as you want them to. With desktop apps, it's easier to have a user go and do another task (like searching for a customer), and then send the result back to the calling object, the instance of which will still exist. As you've found out, if you try and mimic this functionality in a web app by storing too much information in sessions, you'll quickly end up with spaghetti code.
You can use AJAX (google it if you don't already know about it) to update parts of a page only, and get a more streamlined UI, which it sounds like something you'll be needing to do. To get a general idea of the possibilities, you might want to take a look at Bamboo Invoice. It's not built with CakePHP, but it's built with CodeIgniter, which is another open source PHP MVC framework. It sounds like Bamboo Invoice has quite a few similar functionalities to what you're describing (an Invoice has line items, totals, a customer, etc), so it might help you to get an idea of how you should structure your interface - and if you want to dig into the source code, how you can achieve some of the things you want to do.
Bamboo Invoice uses Ajax to give the app a feel of 'one view with everything on it', which it sounds like you want.
Fourth, regarding the specific case of your Customer Search situation, storing stuff in a session variable probably isn't the way to go. You may well want to use an autocomplete field, which sends an Ajax request to server after each time a character is entered in the field, and displays the list list of suggestions / matching customers that the server sends back. See an example here: http://jqueryui.com/autocomplete/. Implementing an autocomplete isn't totally straight forward, but there should be plenty of examples and tutorials all over the web.
Lastly, I obviously don't know what your business does, but have you looked into existing software that might work for you, before building your own? There's a lot of great, flexible web-based solutions, at very reasonable prices, for a LOT of the common tasks that businesses have. There might be something that gives you great results for much less time and money than it costs to build your own solution.
Either way, good luck, and enjoy CakePHP!
When I was setting up an account with gmail few years back (probably this is still a case, haven't check) I've noticed that system doesn't allow to register common terms, nouns as username, it seemed that it used a sort of dictionary for screening. I would like to implement similar feature in my app, anyone have idea how to tackle this? App is written in PHP but understand I'll have to hook it up with online service.
Thanks
Wordpress MU has such feature too, you fill a list of possible usernames that you want to avoid and they become unavailable for users. You can check its source to get their approach...
Sinan.
Well the API will vary from service to service so I'd suggest you find one, look at their developer docs and then if you have a question ask it here.
Does anybody know if there is a way to understand what users are doing on my web page? I can see overall stats with Google Analytics but I can't really understand what users are looking at, if they are reading my content, etc.
Does anybody know if there is a free or paid service that I could use?
Dani
You could try using one of the analytics things that does heatmaps.
These give a visual representation of where people are clicking on the site, and I think some may let you track where the cursor is as well.
This is about as close as you can get to what you want - there's no way to track what someone's eyes are looking at,
Wikipedia claims that google analytics can do this. I've not seen it in analytics, but it may well be hiding there somewhere. I have used clicktale a bit before though:
http://www.clicktale.com/
Try Mouseflow. You can even record your visitors and watch the videos. Haven't tried it but looks promising.
The Site Overlay report in Google Analytics is probably what Wikipedia is referring to. However, it doesn't work most of the time (it's a "piece of crap" in Google's own words).
ClickTale is okay. I recommend CrazyEgg: http://crazyegg.com/