Re: Re: Form 2 PDF 2 Form

I had the exact same problem with a form some time ago. Definetely the best way to do it is "spanning" the form. I don't think the temp table will do. I did it with a session variable wich saves the info from the form and what part of the form you are. So the user can flip between pages in the form. Here is some code that will help you do it. (From the top of my mind, code not tested, use it with care!) <?php session_register("userform"); if (!isset($userform["step"])) $userform["step"]=1; $step = $userform["step"]; if (isset($_POST["confirm"])) { switch ($step):

       case "1":
               $userform["whateverfieldname"] = $_POST["whateverfieldname"];
               // etc
               break;
       case "2":
               // more...
               break;
       case "3":
               // more...
               break;
       case "4":
               // more...
               if (This is the last step) {
                   .. save $userform to the database
               }
               break;
      }

} print("<form>"); printf("<input type="hidden' name='step' value='%s'>", $userform["step"]); print("<input type="hidden' name='confirm' value='1>"); print("<table>"); switch($step) { case "1":

      // place here the fields for step 1
       break;

case "2":

      // place here the fields for step 2
       break;

case "3":

      // place here the fields for step 3
       break;

case "4":

      // place here the fields for step 4
       break;

} print("</table>"); print("</form>"); ?> HTH Sævar Öfjörð wrote:

You could use a temp table in the database which gets cleaned up both when the last page is completed or if there is data in it when the user starts from scratch. Of course you would have to use sessions to identify each user to each line of temp data. I'm not sure if this will work, there are some problems to overcome here. -----Original Message----- From: Petre Agenbag [mailto:internet@vsa.co.za] Sent: 1. júlí 2003 12:01 To: Shivanischal A Cc: php-general@lists.php.net Subject: Re: [PHP] Re: Form 2 PDF 2 Form Hi Shiva Appreciate your input. Wrt the spanning of the form, I think, in my situation, it would actually make things worse... You see, my suspicion is that most of the users who are experiencing problems, have very bad connections, many complain that they lose connectivity while they are busy with the form ( it takes them maybe 30 min or so to fill out the entire form ( they basically transfer the data off paper forms they have filled out earlier while "on-site", so it's not really alot of data, but there are a lot of fields...) So, my fear with this approach is that they will maybe get past the first part of the form, submit that OK, then start getting trouble with subsequent parts, leaving me with a whole lot of partial entries in the DB., and how do I get them to "resume" at a a later stage? You don't understand the mindset of these people, when something goes wrong, they'll switch off their PC's and try to start from scratch, so it's going to be difficult to try and get them to understand the concept of multi-part forms... I shudder to even think what will happen, or worse, how I will be able to allow them to make corrections on a certain part of the form once they have submit it. And sometimes, to their defense, it's not them that want to change the details on the form, but the subject of the form who has decided to change their name etc... I'm not ditching this idea, I will definitely give it some more thought, it's just at this moment, my mind is running through my original idea of PDF forms trying to evaluate it. Each method will have it's pro's and cons, and I'll have to go and weigh them. I must add, I don't see "effort" as a con for a particular solution, as long as I know it will solve the problem without adding other cons... Thanks again, will take it up with you again ( need some more input on this PDF thing to get some balanced views) PS, if you have experience with using this method, I would appreciate it if you could let me have your "field notes" and how successfull it's working for you. You see, the main thing here is that I need to KNOW when someone who says they have submitted something actually have, and that they are not trying their luck... On Tue, 2003-07-01 at 13:43, Shivanischal A wrote:

hi, seems u have complicated task on hand mate. cant u simply consider

span the

user input over multiple pages? i mean using 2 or more form on

different

pages instead of a single form on one single page. if this cant be

done,

we'll think of other measures. but this is by far the most simple

method

-shiva "Petre Agenbag" <internet@vsa.co.za> wrote in message news:1057058859.4632.16.camel@petre...

Hi List OK, firstly, sorry if this has been on the list before... What I'd like to do is something like this: I currently have an app that takes user input via a normal html

form,

and then pops the content into mysql. The problem is that lots of user complain that the submit times out

due

to slow/bad connections, and hence the data gets lost. What I was hoping to do now, was to somehow create a PDF form from

the

current html form ( should generate itself on the fly ) , the PDF

form

will obviously need to be downloaded to the user's PC, and will be unique for each time they use the system, ie, I don't want to just

give

them a blank template PDF, some of the values need to be "auto-completed" and inserted into the form as "read-only", as well

as a

couple of "hidden" fields with identifying values so I can know

where to

pop it into the db. The idea is that the user will now come to the point where he would usually have filled in the html form, but instead, the app must autogenerate a PDF with some values auto-completed and/or hidden,

and

the user then downloads the pdf to his/her PC, where they continue

to

fill out the pdf form. Then, on completetion, I'd like to investigate several delivery mechanisms, arguably, the easiest way for the users ( who are mostly techno-peasants), is to simply e-mail the pdf as an attachment to

me),

but then I will either have to create an auto-parser for the email (prolly difficult and prone to problems with making sure the

attachment

is correct etc), or I will have to then manually process the attachments. Either way, I would need to "feed" the pdf to my app, where the form/hidden variables would need to be harvested from the form, and

noly

then (after validation), be entered into the db. So, simple concept, but I'm sure many pitfalls, the least being

probably

that I have never done this, and don't know where to start, or even

if

it's possible/advisable to follow this route. Hence my post here...