How to Collect User Input on Your Website

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BobH
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How to Collect User Input on Your Website

Post by BobH »

I have a website hosted by GoDaddy (http://www.broughton1960.com). It is a very simple site that I put together for my old high school classmates of half a century ago. I did it all using HTML (no web page generator software) which I learned how to do as I went along. The graphics and content and navigation are all very simplistic and basic showing little sophistication.

I would like to add pages to the site to allow members of the class to submit life history data and photos. Data collected would be displayed on the site and incorporated into a Memory Book that will be published to celebrate our 50th reunion and golden anniversary.

I tried to learn how to install and use Apache as the underlying engine for this purpose, but I kept running into issues that I didn't understand and problems I couldn't resolve. Apparently this is a learning curve I can't acquire.

Can anyone point me in a direction that would allow me to address my goal of providing the means of gathering data, storing it and displaying it? I will probably need some kind of login validation to prevent the pornographers from co-opting the site, also.
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Bigaldoc
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Re: How to Collect User Input on Your Website

Post by Bigaldoc »

BobH wrote:...I would like to add pages to the site to allow members of the class to submit life history data and photos. Data collected would be displayed on the site and incorporated into a Memory Book that will be published to celebrate our 50th reunion and golden anniversary....
I'm less of a web builder than you, Bob so I'm sure someone will have a more technical answer for you but in the meantime...

Could you just get people to email their data and then YOU add it to the domain via your normal, private FTP logon mechanism? I know it might have pix as well as text but you seem to already know how to deal with that angle. Just a thought to keeping it simple and avoiding the porn and spammers. I know, for I tried a guest book years ago and had to get rid of it quickly.

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mwolfman
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Re: How to Collect User Input on Your Website

Post by mwolfman »

Hey Bob, Apache is a webserver, same as (but better than) IIS. You need a php, perl or similar script to gather the info then dynamically fill pages.

A simpler way is kinda what Al was talking about. A simple page on the site people can fill out and the info will be emailed to you, then, you throw together a page.
Mike Wolfman

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BobH
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Re: How to Collect User Input on Your Website

Post by BobH »

Thanks for the responses!

My attempt at installing Apache was so that I could develop and test PHP scripts on my own system. I have done some PHP tutorials and tried a few basic scripts on my own, but it is pretty cumbersome to do when you have to continually upload your scripts test, redo, upload, test, redo . . . you get the idea.

I guess I was hoping that new tools were available since my last attempt about 4 years ago.
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agibsonsw
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Re: How to Collect User Input on Your Website

Post by agibsonsw »

Hi.
I'm studying PHP and MySql. I installed XAMPP from http://www.apachefriends.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; which installs Apache, MySql, etc. in one go. I'm able to build and test pages and form input very easily from my local browser. I'm reading PHP 6 and MySql 5 by Larry Ullman and highly recommend it.
I'm able to fully test form data gathering; the only difficulty is trying to send emails using localhost. Andy.
"I'm here to save your life. But if I'm going to do that, I'll need total uninanonynymity." Me Myself & Irene.