How many forms can ABVFP handle?

myjaydee · #1 10-17-2009, 09:56 AM

After yesterday's problem, which eventually sorted itself out mysteriously - the forms are really messed up. When I click from originating page to page where the form is, it is showing information for a different form even though the webaddress shown is correct, then when form is completed and the submit button is hit, it takes you to "Page not found" even though it is posted correctly, etc.

I want to use ABVFP to handle hundreds of forms so that I can collect data from each request. What is going on please? I've been up all night trying to work on this.

navaldesign · #2 10-17-2009, 11:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by myjaydee

After yesterday's problem, which eventually sorted itself out mysteriously - the forms are really messed up. When I click from originating page to page where the form is, it is showing information for a different form even though the webaddress shown is correct

What does ABVFP have to do with it ??????

This is some kind of linking issue, ABVFP only comes into schene AFTER form submission.

Quote:

then when form is completed and the submit button is hit, it takes you to "Page not found" even though it is posted correctly, etc.

If you receive the mail even though you get this 404 error, you have mistaken the Thank you page URL somehow. Look at the browser address bar to check the URL of the page that can't be found.

If no mail is sent, then could also be that the script tries to find the error page and can't find it.

Last, it might be your forms "action" mistaken. Without a link to some of these problematic forms, I can't say.

Quote:

I want to use ABVFP to handle hundreds of forms so that I can collect data from each request. What is going on please? I've been up all night trying to work on this.

Allow me to say that there is no private site that needs 100's of forms. You should probably review your site structure. Although ABVFP can handle 100's of forms, please explain what these forms are for.

myjaydee · #3 10-18-2009, 01:33 AM

Hi Naval,

I'm trying to build 2 complicated sites, where the end user can download money-off vouchers. It's taken me almost a year to design concept, branding, artwork & sites. Something did mess up yesterday - it may have been my fault initially as I didn't change the Formid ID on two of the forms. However, numerous problems kept occurring - the links were correct. I also found that I had a bookmark that was positioned slightly over the forms - so that is perhaps why the form was showing up from another page.

I kept stripping out the folder via FTP and reposting pages one by one - and eventually discovered there was one offending page which I just couldn't get to carry on to the successpage - so got over that problem a couple of hours ago by simply recreating with a different page name. There never was an email sent to me regarding that page - and when looking at the phpmyadmin - there was never a table set up for that particuliar form. Strange one.

Fingers crossed I'm never going to come up with that nightmare again.

Now I'd love it if you could come up with a suggestion as to how I can get away without needing hundreds of forms.

Is there any way we could communicate about this rather than over the forum?

navaldesign · #4 10-18-2009, 08:49 AM

If the info is the same, it should all be stored in a unique table in the database. Otherwise it becomes practically impossible to manage the info.

If the forms are the same, you would need a modified version of ABVFP so that it will allow processing the forms (granted they are the same) without checking the page where they come from).

myjaydee · #5 10-18-2009, 01:42 PM

Morning Navel,

Mmmm trying to figure this one out.

The info submitted from each page will be different - however there will be duplicates as people will download more than one voucher.

The forms are virtually identical except for the fact that their success pages are different.

Therefore I have set up two hidden fields on each form:
1) voucherID
2) business_type (for further processing).

Therefore a separate unique table is created to access each voucher page.

I am now trying to figure out how to copy the records from each table into a master table for administration purposes with myphpadmin. However, there doesn't seem to be an option to copy records to another table in same database but there is an option to copy data to a different database. But when I go to the home page of phpmyadmin to create another database - there are "No Privileges To Create New Database".

Can you please tell me how I can get everything into one database?

And if you have any idea as to how to simplify the whole thing - I'll worship the ground you walk on Navel :)

navaldesign · #6 10-19-2009, 01:13 PM

Of course i can't know how this works, however it seems rather strange that you need so many different forms and tables.

phpMyAdmin has no privileges to create DBs. You would need to create the DB through your CP database section, then use phpMyAdmin to copy whatever you need to copy.

In my opinion, you should be creating only one (or, a limited number of) table that should have enough columns to accomodate for ll the possible types of vouchers / forms.

phpMyAdmin is nt the ideal tool to manage info in database, it is rather a tool to manage the database and its tables on structure level. Of course IF you do need hundreds of tables, it becomes practically impossible to create e specific user friendly Database interface for each table, the cost would be too high. But, as i said, i doubt you need such a number of different forms / tables.

myjaydee · #7 10-19-2009, 07:58 PM

Hi Naval,

You're giving me some hope. The best way for me to describe what I would like to achieve is by drawing it.

One table for everything would be brilliant - making everything so much easier. But how can I achieve this?

navaldesign · #8 10-21-2009, 12:48 PM

I repeat: creating hundreds of tables is unthinkable. At most you should be grouping forms / vouchers so that you will create a limited number (or even only one) tables.

Then you can include a column in this table for the "type of voucher" or whatever you use to distinguish them. At that point you would only need one Database interface to manage all the info. You can, in example, select to display only vouchers of type X or those of type Y.

Please note that ABVFP is a generic form processor. Therefore, it might not be the most suitable tool for specific applications, that require features that are not the most common.

Maybe seeking some professional advise / help could help you organize this work in a more efficient way.

However, including a hidden field that contains the voucher type, and having a form that allows you to gather all the rest of the info, all in the same table, would simplify things.

If the vouchers also have other info (different for each voucher type) the decision on one, a limited number of, or many tables, depends on the number of different columns that you might need.

Without specific info, i am not able to provide specific advise. The above scheme you posted is too generic.

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