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
Related
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.
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 am making a Flash game that stores user's statistics from previous sessions. I would also like to maintain some sort of leader board as well.
After I posted, I realized I was asking the wrong question. I feel that shared objects are the proper solution to this problem rather than using a database. Any further feedback for implementing shared objects is welcome.
Thanks for any feedback.
You can not directly query MySQL database table from Flash game, you must have some server-side technology backing you up for the job.
I would suggest using some PHP or Ruby - or whatever is easily available to you for the job.
Flash is going to be rendered on Client browser (as swf) and won't be in touch with server as it will be served as a static resource by the web browser.
I hope this reply will help you moving towards right direction.
As Dharmavir mentioned, you cannot process MySQL queries through Flash (AS*).
That said, its pretty easy to setup Flash to communicate with remote scripts, as it has the ability to POST/GET data through requests.
There are many tutorials on this.
First, write a simple script to input the data into the DB. I recommend using PHP (I think its the easiest to learn tbh).
If this is your first time performing queries with PHP, I also recommend using Prepared Statements instead of mysql_*.
Once you have your script setup, you can then move onto processing a request from your flash app to your script (which is also pretty easy).
I found a tutorial series on making a chat app with flash and PHP. The tutorial includes making requests to PHP scripts and inputting data to SQL DBs, so it should help you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeWKauwFUEQ < This tutorial is split into many different videos. take a look at the suggestions to find the others.
This all goes back to some of my original questions of trying to "index" a webpage. I was originally trying to do it specifically in java but now I'm opening it up to any language.
Before I tried using HTML unit and other methods in java to get the information I needed but wasn't successful.
The information I need to get from a webpage I can very easily find with firebug and I was wondering if there was anyway to duplicate what firebug was doing specifically for my needs. When I open up firebug I go to the NET tab, then to the XHR tab and it shows a constantly updating page with the information the server is updating. Then when I click on the request and look at the response it has the information I need, and this is all without ever refreshing the webpage which is what I am trying to do(not to mention the variables it is outputting do not show up in the html of the webpage)
So can anyone point me in the right direction of how they would go about this?
(I will be putting this information into a mysql database which is why i added it as a tag, still dont know what language would be best to use though)
Edit: These requests on the server are somewhat random and although it shows the url that they come from when I try to visit the url in firefox it comes up trying to open something called application/jos
Jon, I am fairly certain that you are confusing several technologies here, and the simple answer is that it doesn't work like that. Firebug works specifically because it runs as part of the browser, and (as far as I am aware) runs under a more permissive set of instructions than a JavaScript script embedded in a page.
JavaScript is, for the record, different from Java.
If you are trying to log AJAX calls, your best bet is for the serverside application to log the invoking IP, useragent, cookies, and complete URI to your database on receipt. It will be far better than any clientside solution.
On a note more related to your question, it is not good practice to assume that everyone has read other questions you have posted. Generally speaking, "we" have not. "We" is in quotes because, well, you know. :) It also wouldn't hurt for you to go back and accept a few answers to questions you've asked.
So, the problem is?:
With someone else's web-page, hosted on someone else's server, you want to extract select information?
Using cURL, Python, Java, etc. is too painful because the data is continually updating via AJAX (requires a JS interpreter)?
Plain jQuery or iFrame intercepts will not work because of XSS security.
Ditto, a bookmarklet -- which has the added disadvantage of needing to be manually triggered every time.
If that's all correct, then there are 3 other approaches:
Develop a browser plugin... More difficult, but has the power to do everything in one package.
Develop a userscript. This is much easier to do and technologies such as Greasemonkey deal with the XSS problem.
Use a browser macro technology such as Chickenfoot. These all have plusses and minuses -- which I won't get into.
Using Greasemonkey:
Depending on the site, this can be quite easy. The big drawback, if you want to record data, is that you need your own web-server and web-application. But this server can be locally hosted on an XAMPP stack, or whatever web-application technology you're comfortable with.
Sample code that intercepts a page's AJAX data is at: Using Greasemonkey and jQuery to intercept JSON/AJAX data from a page, and process it.
Note that if the target page does NOT use jQuery, the library in use (if any) usually has similar intercept capabilities. Or, listening for DOMSubtreeModified always works, too.
If you're using a library such as jQuery, you may have an option such as the jQuery ajaxSend and ajaxComplete callbacks. These could post requests to your server to log these events (being careful not to end up in an infinite loop).
I want to design a website but I don't know from where to start.
Is there a beginners' guide to start with?
How much dedication do you hope to provide? If you merely want to design a single website, quickly and dirty, there's a plethora of open source web templates available online, with clean and basic HTML/XHTML design strategies that you could modify, and provide content for.
Such as this and that.
Alternatively, if you would like to design your own websites from scratch and have full technical knowledge in the field (the proper way). Pick up a book or two on HTML/XHTML/XML, with documentation on content management systems, php, etc.
You'd soon find that in the beginning your development would be gradual and at best, slow. If you put in sufficient effort, you would find that you get to the point where you can quickly design sites confidently, which best illuminate your content.
You should be familiar with this and this
Try this Web Design from Scratch
I understand by website you mean some kind of web-app. And by design you mean, not just the page design but the design of the web-app. First, you have to understand the anatomy of a web-app. The major components are:
Database is used to store user and application data for long term. A database provides query functionality (SQL), backup on one installation and restore on another, triggers when a data entry changes, and constraints that must be satisfied by the data tables.
Web Server, also called Http Server hosts the web application.
Web Browser such as Internet Explorer or Firefox.
When a user types a URL into the web browser, the web server forwards the URL to the corresponding web application. The web application performs the needed tasks (which may involve reading or writing into the database) and returns a new html page to the user via www.
Some components of the web application are:
Database access objects are representations of objects that encapsulate interaction with database tables.
Business Logic is the main logic of the application. Here we implement the search functionality using Lucene library, for example.
Action Handler handles a http request received from the user, for example when she types a URL or when she clicks on the "submit" button. These are Http GET and POST requests. The Action Handler uses the business logic to drive the actions.
Data view on the web brower is constructed using some template library (which usually produces javascript user interface code for the web browser). For interactivity one may use Ajax techniques.
Almost all web-apps separate the model, view and controller of a web application. The view deals with the display, the model deals with data and the controller deals with control/functioning. See http://www.uidesign.net/Articles/Papers/UsingMVCPatterninWebInter.html.
Several frameworks implement MVC. The most easy ones to get started are Ruby on Rails and Django (over which an open source social network called Pinax too is written). There are much more comprehensive frameworks and libraries in java too (for a single web appl you may need to join several of these libraries), such as spring, webwork, tapestry, lucene (for search), sitemesh (for page decoration). Many java web apps run on tomcat web server and with mysql database.
I started with http://w3schools.com. Make sure you're using Firefox and the Firebug addon. Get your hands dirty then get familiar with the web design community.
I have CSS Mastery by Andy Budd on my desk and it's a good, readable, short, yet deep guide to CSS.
Don't Make me think has also become my mantra of web design.
Overall, you're going to produce a lot of crap--as I have--before you get good. If you have someone to look over what you're doing that'll be the best help. Personal drive will matter the most in the long run though, so stick with it and keep learning.
Liz Castro has a good book too.