I have a database which manages login information for an application, and find myself (for rather tragic reasons involving combo boxes - don't ask) needing to manage the registration of new users through a web frontend. Quite literally all it needs to do is have a single form composed of a few edit boxes and a handful of combo boxes. Keeping in mind that I'm completely inept and possessed of functionally no previous experience as a web programmer, how would one suggest going about making this form? (If there's a solution that keeps web simplicity but is functionally heavy on C++, or less ideally Java, I'm all ears.)
As a bonus question, it would also be useful (but, I imagine, rather difficult) to have one of the combo boxes update with information pulled from a SELECT query to the database. Is this possible for a web design beginner like me?
If I understand you right, you just want a web interface to login/create a user account?
Since I have a heavy C++ background, I would have done that with PHP, CSS and SQL. With PHP you can access your database in any way you want with SQL. Use CSS to display faulty fields in the user interface.
I run an Apache server with PHP5 and MySQL.
I'm I on the right track? or did you mean something else?
If this is what you are looking for let me know and I can try to help you a bit further.
Related
TL;DR: Does strapi require me to model my database schema inside its admin panel?
Or is there a way I can use a database that I created its tables (but didn't populate it yet), populate it then and generate APIs for use in my front-end?
I understand this may be a general misunderstanding on my part as far as and I may have gotten on this framework for the wrong reasons - but I'd like to understand why so I can avoid making such decisions later on and have some better fundamentals for choosing my tooling.
My goal - I'm creating an eCommerce website for an extremely small artisan's shop that cannot afford anything but stuff like free AWS tiers at the moment. The end goal is a website for a few products with credit card payment, a database, and reasonably safe authentication, and I want it to be simple enough so that I can eventually scale it if it grows. I want to understand this project very intimately and really get to know my tooling.
What I tried vs my needs - my stack currently consists of react+next on the front-end, and strapi with postgresql for the back-end. I then took to the PostgreSQL docs (and my undergrad's database notes) and tried my hand at designing a database schema based on my app's use cases. However, I believed strapi would work with a traditional database modeled in a bare bones way. What I see now is that the only option from the docs is modeling it from scratch through its admin panel. I'd like to really understand out how I'm supposed to work with something I modeled elsewhere - how it all connects. I'd really appreciate any help. I hope this question is not too broad but I'm hoping it'll clear up some huge misconception I have!
I'm working on a project at school where we have to create a small system for an RV retailer to track customers, vehicles, employees, inventory, and so on.
We've gotten to the point where we'll need to start coding pretty soon, but I'm having trouble figuring out the logistics of everything. For example, I know enough to build and use the website and database, but I don't have any idea on how to connect the two.
I know SQL fairly well. Enough to know what and where to look for the information, but I don't know enough about connecting my database to know what I'm looking for.
So what I'm looking for is a basic rundown on different options I can look and do some research on what would be best for our group.
I feel like there's a lot of information out there on how to do stuff, but I just don't have the basic information on why it's relevant and how and where to fully utilize it.
I hope this makes sense. Please let me know if there's anything I can do to help clear it up.
One of the options of having a database-driven website is to use PHP.
It is a server-side scripting language, which is used to generate the dynamic content on the webpages. You can connect to the database, obtain user input using for example HTML forms, perform queries and display results on the webpage.
Essentially you build an application with a web-based user interface. PHP is supported on a vast majority of web hosting platforms.
I need to implement yet another database website. Let's say roughly 5 tables, 25 columns, and (eventually) thousands to tens of thousands of rows. Easy data entry and maintenance are more important than presentation of the data to non-privileged users. It's a niche site, so performance is not a concern. We'll have no trouble finding somewhere to host it.
So: what's a good platform for this? Intituitively I feel that there ought to be some platform that allows this to be done with no code written - some web version of MS Access. Obviously I'm happy to code business rules, and special logic that distinguishes this from every other database app.
I've looked at Drupal (with Views) and it looks possible, but with quite a bit of effort. Will look at Al Fresco next. A CMS-y platform helps because then you can nicely integrate static content, you get nice styling, plugins, etc etc.
Really good data entry (tracking changes, logging, ability to roll back, mass imports...) would be great. If authorised users could do arbitrary SQL queries (yes, I know...) that would be a big bonus. Image management support a small bonus.
Django is what you are looking for. In fact, you could probably set up what you ask without much coding at all, just configuration.
Once complete, authorised users can add 'rows' with a nice but simple GUI, or, of course, you can batch import via database commands.
I'm a Python newbie, and I've already created 2 Django-based sites. I have created more than a dozen Drupal-based sites, and Django is easier and produces significantly faster sites.
Your need somewhat sits between two chairs : bespoke application and CMS-based. I'd advocate for the CMS approach, if and only if you feel the need for content structure customization will grow in the future, slowly removing the need for direct SQL queries.
I am biased since working with eZ Publish for many years now, but it satisfies the requirements you expressed natively :
Really good data entry (tracking changes, logging, ability to roll back, mass imports...)
[...] Image management support a small bonus.
An idea of the content edition feel can be watched here:
http://ez.no/Demos-Videos/eZ-Publish-Administration-Interface-Video-Tutorial
and you can download and test-drive eZ Publish Community Edition there : http://share.ez.no/latest
It is a PHP-based solution, strong professional community (http://share.ez.no), over 1100 add-ons available on http://projects.ez.no. The underlying libs are mostly relying on Apache Zeta Components, high-quality, robust set of PHP5 libraries.
Last note : the content model is abstracted, meaning you'd not have to create a new table everytime a new type of content should be stored : a simple content class definition from the administration interface, and the rest is taken care of, including the edition interface for the new content type. Might remove the need for hardcore SQL queries ?
Hope it helped,
Drupal can do most of what you need (I don't know of a module that will let you enter arbitrary SQL queries), but you will end up with some overhead of tables and modules you don't really need. It's up to you to decide if that's a problem or not. I don't think the overhead would hurt performance in your case.
The advantages of using Drupal would be the large community, the stability of the platform and the flexibility to add more functionality when needed. Also, the large user base ensures that most code has been tested rather well.
I highly recommend Drupal. It is very simple (also internally codebase is small and clean) it has dosens of possibilities and tremendous support. Once you start with Drupal you will never go to anything else.
Note that I'm not connected with Drupal staff, I've just created dosens of Drupas sites and many of them in just a minutes. My last one took me 2 hrs, see it here http://iPadDevZone.com
UPDATE #1:
It really depends on your DB schema complexity. The best case is that you just use CCK module (part of core now) and create your node type. Node is Drupal name for content. All you do is just web admin your node type fields (text, image, numbers, dates, custom, etc). Then, if user creates content with this node type he/she can enter all the fields which are stored in separate db table fields. This is however hidden for you - if you wish not to know about it - it is just a web gui. Then you choose how the node is presented, which properties as shown and where.
Watch videos in CCK resources section in the bottom of this page: http://drupal.org/project/cck
If you need to do some programming then it is also very easy to use so called PHP code sniplets which are entered as part of your content (node) and executed when the page is displayed.
Drupal has node revisions built in the core. You can see all the versions and roll back if you wish.
You can set the permissions in quite granular level so you can control what your users may or may not.
I would take a look at Symphony. I havn't been using it myself, but it seems like it's really easy to use and to customize!
http://symphony-cms.com/
Seems to me an online database system would be better than a CMS system.
So in addition to what's been posted above:
www.quickbase.com (by Intuit) - think around $150/mo
www.rollbase.com - check on price, full featured
www.rhythmdata.com - easy to set up, but don't think it's got the advanced features you're looking for.
Good luck!
B
I appreciate these answers, but most of them are really platforms that are much better at something else (eg, Drupal really is a CMS, and has some support for custom fields - but it's not at all easy). Since this is a brand new site from scratch, it doesn't really make sense to start with something that does custom database fields as an afterthought, I think.
The closest I've found is Zoho Creator. It really is like "MS Access for Web 2.0" - and even supports importing from Access. The pricing could get expensive though. It feels like it might eventually be quite constraining. I'm still evaluating.
Are there any other products like Zoho Creator?
I am going to be creating a work order system with three roles
The "client" - The client can request projects to be completed by the worker. The project must be selected from a list of templates and various sub options all referred to as a campaign (campaign types come and go throughout the year)
The worker - The worker must be able to view work orders and mark them as accepted/rejected, work in progress and completed.
The overlord - He/She needs to see stats concerning the activity of the other two types of users.
So.
This is a web app. But a very simple one in terms of logic. Could something like drupal handle this? Or would I have to write my own modules? The other out of the box aspects of drupal make it attractive (admin, user creation, news feeds, etc...)
I have looked at Views and Webforms. Views seems great for querying and displaying data from the work order database (great for a portion of all three roles), but I am not clear as to how I interface with my work order database when creating and modifying work orders.
Webforms doesn't see to be the answer, I am sure I just missing something right under my nose.
Any hints in which direction to look would be great!
Thanks.
If you use a simpler, less powerful CMS, you may save time with the learning curve but lose time struggling with a less flexible framework. Also: Check how active the developer community is when evaluating Open Source software. You'll need support.
Views and Webforms may be tools that you'll end up using but what you're really talking about is work flow. You could build your own work flow with a combination CCK and views, yes. There are also work flow modules.
Are you and IRC user? See: http://drupal.org/irc
I am pretty certain that you can do this with drupal. I would suggest looking into using an easier CMS than drupal for something simple like this. Using something like MediaWiki for this application might be quicker to develop and have less of a learning curve. If you don't mind putting in the time to learn drupal, I think you will ultimately have more freedom.
First of all, don't underestimate Drupal's learning curve. Especially if your PHP and/or programming skills are relatively new. Drupal does a lot of things in it's own way, and it's good to know that way.
Secondly, Drupal is (imho) made first of all for outward facing sites, it can have a lot of stuff just for the users and not for the public, but a lot of its functionality is made for the CMS part of the system. You might consider using a more framework-style system like Zend Framework, which components are a bit more "loose" but also offers less functionality out of the box.
Thirdly, depending on what a work order is and how it should be treated a custom module could be needed. If a workorder has a really simple datamodel, it could probably be done without programming, but if it is complex you'll have to fire up your favorite editor. Don't worry, making a module sounds scarier than it really is.
I don't know how good your knowledge of drupal is, but to me this has CCK and Views2 and user roles written all over it.
Basically, use CCK to create your content types (remember the user reference field might come in handy to assign a node/record to a particular user)
Then create views for each user group (they could be shared, as you can assign them to more than one role type)
Creating a view where you filter the cck user reference field by the user looking at the screen may also come in handy here.
OKAY, there might be a little bit more to it than that, but what you want is doable.
UPDATE: To protect your site from unwanted eyes, check out the site security module as it puts a security wrapper around all of your website.
Views - Create lists - allow access by user roles
CCK - Define your own content types (add your own fields)
I'd greatly appreciate your advice on a strange specification.
We have a requirement to create an application where users can drag/drop field types onto a form so that they can create their own "app". I have the front-end setup, but the back-end is a big problem.
There are forward mapping ORMs and reverse mapping ORMs, yet I've not found one that can embed within the application and generate the tables, relationship, etc. when the user starts up the app. Of course, if a table, field or other entity already exists, it would not overwrite them (and overwrite the underlying data).
ActiveRecord is the closest I've found, but it is web based and does not extend to a WinForm environment. I would SO prefer not have our crew write our own DAL, debug it, etc. when there might be an ORM out there that can do this.
Does anyone know of an ORM that can do this? If not, how would you go about solving this nightmare in the making?
Thank you so much for your help.
Although you can think of a solution for this problem built with ORM, I do not think this is a good idea: these tools are designed to solve another class of problems. The only way is to build the application yourself.
That's an unfortunate app-- if your users wanted to do that, they'd just buy Visual Studio!
This isn't a good position to be in, because no, I'm not aware of any suitable way to do this with an ORM. Sadly, if you're looking for this because of schedule pressure, your project may be in trouble.
In theory you can use any ORM, that can automatically generate database schema. For example see DataObjects.Net, it typically generates and upgrades database schema using persistent model, based on persistent classes and additional custom definitions. But I can hardly imagine how your whole application will work in this case... there are so many potential issues.