Just to preface, I do have some programming experience at the basic level (HTML, CSS, Java, JavaScript, Python, VB.net, C++, C#) so I feel comfortable learning whatever I need to learn.
I am trying to create a web form to collect student information to be stored in a database/spreadsheet. I also want to be able to use information entered to send an e-mail to a reference (I am thinking drop-down list to select the recipient, but I might be a little ambitious with that). Then I want the reference to receiving a link to a web form that they would fill out and then that information would be connected back to the student.
For me, this is a huge project, but before I get started, I am looking for advice on what I need to learn. My default for making web pages is DreamWeaver (please don't criticize I am a novice) but am open to suggestions. Can anyone please advice me on what tools I will need to learn to complete this project? Can I use DreamWeaver? Can I use VB.net? Do I need PHP or some specific type of server setup (it's for a school, so the less I do on the server end, the better)?
Thank you for your help.
You should consider using Google Forms. It may be basic, with simple fields and option selectors, but it has most of the capabilities you require. It is also extremely simple to set up.
It has dropdown menus for users to choose from emails.
You can link a Google Sheet to it, so all results are stored in a spreadsheet.
Related
I have taught myself HTML/CSS and some JavaScript as a hobby, and have reached the point where I am comfortable building a clean simple website. The company I work for (we do nothing related to coding) has a website that is quite outdated so naturally I saw this as an opportunity for my first live site. I approached my Managers at work to take a look at my first mock up and they loved it and want me to revamp our current site.
The one concern they have with me being a rookie is the issue of web security. Essentially they want to make sure that the website I build leaves no vulnerability for someone to hack through our server, start editing our website, etc.
There are no interactive components to the current website. I plan to build this website with only HTML and CSS, and perhaps add some JavaScript later down the road once I progress in my learning a bit more. There are no account logins or areas to enter personal information anywhere on the site.
My question comes down to this -- what can I do to ensure that the website I build is not leaving our company vulnerable? I have done a lot of searching around Stack Overflow and other websites but I am not confident I am finding the correct information.
Details that might make a difference:
Our company website is hosted through godaddy.com
Our website is currently on Wordpress, but I will probably not use Wordpress for the new website
I greatly appreciate all of your help!
since there should be no direct interacting with the server ex PHP and AJAX only HTML CSS and js there should be no security issue, as js and HTML can't edit/delete/read server files, only server-side programming can. eventually you may want to invest in PHP almost no website is complete without PHP or AJAX. take me for example, I used to use just HTML, CSS, and js. then I wanted to do more.. log form answers to a file, show different pages based on the query string. these things are virtually impossible in a HTML, CSS, and js only environment. I would also recommend atleast getting free protection from cloud flare.. they give free shared hosting wildcard SSL, and free DDOS protection, granted for a business you might want to invest a little more than free but free would be a good starting point
also you could pay someone to test the vulnerability of your company, take for example OurMine. a legal hacking group.. you pay them to test your security and they do just that. (they claim they don't log anything that they get) otherwise there might be vulnerabilities you may not be aware of
When you are concerning about just AJAX call, I would help you out for following suggestion regarding "Function access rule from AJAX".
By adding "_" as a prefix for Function name, we can prevent function to be called from The Web publicly. This is the best practice when we need some specific function to be accessed via AJAX only.
Kindly, refer my answer given in other question.
[Website Security: How to learn?
I'm trying to make a view with Swift on Xcode that shows the schedule of an event day.
The problem is that, while I'm trying to make the schedule dynamic, so that it changes depending on the data from a website, the way to do so is elusive.
For example, if there already is a schedule posted on website, what could I do so that the schedule showed on the app changes depending on the schedule on the website?
Or, as an alternative, could I maybe bring data from a google doc that lists a schedule to be shown on the schedule view of my app?
Merely using a webview and linking the website page isn't good enough, as it would be no better than posting a link on the app.
I know these are very broad questions, but I was wondering if the community has better ideas to offer, or some efficient ways to carry out those two aforementioned procedures.
Yes. Using WebView is a lazy method and is not efficient.
The best solution to do this is by scrapping the data from that website. There are lots of scrapping libraries available for many languages. Usually called HTML DOM parsers. I prefer this one: http://simplehtmldom.sourceforge.net/ It's built on PHP. Though its name says "simple", it's very powerful. Read their docs. These scrappers read data from HTML code and parse based on certain rules like id, class etc. You can then convert this data to JSON/XML and then use it in your app
Before doing this, check whether that website has any sort of API
I'm a relative beginner using Google Apps Script and JavaScript, but I've been playing around with bot for days now and I've created a few simple programs and I'd really like to try and get started on my dream project, even if it takes me forever. I'd like some advice on what I should use in terms of making the UI and what database I should use to hold the information (and if this app is even possible).
The App
I'd like to create an online novel management app that utilizes Google Drive as it's source for files. The UI would have a tree that showcases all the google drive files in the novel. When a scene is clicked, the scene opens up for editting.
Questions
Is this app a possibility?
If so, in terms of a UI, what do you think I should use? The google
provided UIbuilder? The HTML service - for example, can I have a
frame on the right that the google doc that needs to be editted
can open up in on the right?
Lastly, what database should I use? The database would have to store
chapter names and positions, as well as scene names, positions,
and the google doc ID that the scene corresponds to. I've got a
handle on ScriptDB and Spreadsheets... And if either of these two
aren't the best option, would some other database work better? And
why?
This app will, hopefully, be able to give an overview of a novel in tree form, allow you to open a particular scene and edit it, create new scenes, and also change the order in which the scenes are displayed. And then when the person finishes their novel, the app will compile all the scenes into one novel (also in google Drive).
Any insight or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Having a look at the questions you recently posted I think I have a pretty good idea of what you are trying to do and it looks like an exciting project... I can only encourage you to start it as soon as you can even if you're not comfortable with all the tools you will need to use, the best learning method is probably to work on something important to you.
Now your 3 questions : 1 - This is perfectly doable in the GAS environment and shouldn't be too hard to go through.
2 - the GUI builder is an easy way to start with UI but it lacks a number of features and tools that you will be needing (tree for example ) and is not so easy to expand if you ever need to. Depending on your knowledge in html, the choice is mainly between UiApp and html service... I would choose UiApp because I'm not good at all in html (but that's not relevant here ;-) but both are capable of building what you want, are easily expandable and not too hard to debug. The advantage could go to html service if you are going to look for 'nice looking features' because it opens the door to 3rd party tools... but again, this is a matter of personal choice.
3 - A recent post from Mogsdad showed that spreadsheet are faster than scriptDb for data storage and manipulation. I find it also easier since I can have a global view on data in the spreadsheet when debugging. Of course Spreadsheet must be considered as a container and data manipulated at array level to benefit from maximum performance. I use that in a lot of database application with full satisfaction.
Sorry for these "general considerations" that don't comply to sto standards ;-)
Yes, it seems that all of the things you are requesting are not too ridiculous. I recommend sticking to Google services because they are all easily integrated. To start off, you may want to use the UI builder/UI services. There may be a point in this project where you may want some functionality that the UiApp doesn't provide. At that point, you might want to switch over to HtmlService.
My answer is the same for the databases question. You might want to use a spreadsheet for your database so that you will be able to easily edit it by hand if you need to. You may not have the performance that another database would give you, but it will be fairly easy to test and mess around with your spreadsheet "database."
You could start out with getting the basics down. There's a serious amount of data out there. I would suggest you research on an "as-needed" basis. Design some work-/dataflow patterns for your app, for which you could try to use the Fluid UI extension for Chrome. Have a look at this from Mozilla on the designing of apps.
When you've gone through this you might want to have a look at Phonegap and the basics of web development and how you could combine the two.
There's also several ways of using/storing data. You could try WebSQL though it they no longer develop it. You could look at IndexedDB. You could try to use cookies.
Seriously, have a look around. You might also like the books of Wrox. They're very informative and have great work with reading demo's. Though the books are huge ;)
I'm trying to figure out the different skills and technologies necessary to develop webpage personalization apps that allow users to input and edit text/images/links on a webpage. About.me and Flavors.me would be the most advanced examples of what I'm talking about. Thanks in advance for any guidance.
#tim, they're database driven apps. The user enters information into a database (or Facebook profile, etc) and it's then pulled back out via a scripting language and presented on the page. The page layout is also stored in a DB and brought together with the user's profile information for what becomes the page layout you see. About.me seems to take it a step further by creating an email account that's tied to the user account.
Technology-wise, just about any back-end language could be used. Facebook is written in PHP, though they have a language-agnostic API that could be talked to from .net, java, php, etc. You'll need a database, and that probably would either be MySQL, Sql Server or Postgres, though there are certainly others. Finally you'd probably want to make use of the API's I spoke about including Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, etc. to aggregate information the user already has entered in different locations.
Examples of this type of site are varied and all over. Mint.com does it for financials. Grooveshark will tie into facebook and others to communicate and share your music collection. Linked in will tie into others as well. Integration is actually a very lucrative segment of the programming business right now. An app that talks to others has good marketable value.
I am working on an application that will have online and offline components and would like to get some opinions on how I am planning to do this. Feel free to give me some tough love if this is a ridiculous idea as I would like to learn as much as possible with this :o)
Here are is an outline for what I am trying to accomplish...
Client portion does basic CRUD, but forms may change depending on what is in the online database.
Client portion can be used online or offline.
Client portion should be fairly easy to move from one machine to the next (ie I'd rather not have to set up a database on each client).
Server portion does not need to be synched in real time.
I'm considering making the client portion a series of HTML forms that read from and write to cookies. The forms will be generated using JS based on what is in the cookies. For example, a cookie may store things like a list of values that will be used in a select box on the form. When the forms are submitted they will write to cookies. The forms could be used to submit data that will likely change how the form is generated next time it is loaded... for example, I may have a form that will allow me to enter options that will be included in another form's select box.
The server portion will read these cookies, update the database and then update the cookies so that the forms are appropriately generated next time.
Does this sound nuts? Would I be better off looking in to something like Google Gears? Any tips, advice or ideas would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks in advance :o)
Unless the online/offline thing is what will distinguish your application, I'd let Gears handle this. The general advice is to focus your effort on the parts of the functionality that distinguishes you, and let libraries handle the rest—assuming they handle it in a way that is acceptable for your app.