Posted by Stuart Miller on 09/01/06 17:01

"umlatte" <post.mod@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1157125504.376804.183220@m79g2000cwm.googlegroups.com...
>I think I have gotten in over my head, so a point in the right
> direction would be nice.
>
> What I want to do is create a document with checkboxes that all the
> people in my office can check off when they finish a project. The page
> will be hosted internally on a Mac. I know HTML design, but not a lot
> of heavy coding (PHP or Java) but I can learn if directed to the right
> sites.
>
> So far it seems like I will have to install PHP and mySQL into the Mac
> (or enable PHP anyhow I realize it is already in there). Then set up a
> database to remember the states of the checkboxes... yeah I pretty much
> have no idea how to do most of that.
>
> Any ideas on a simple way to create a form that will be hosted
> internally on a Mac and can have a bunch of data with checkboxes that
> can be viewed and edited by multible users and will remember the states
> of the checkboxes?
>
First some warnings
I started as a programmer before the first pc, and I never had much love for
database packages back them. I tend to look for a simple program I can write
to do a job.
I run apache on a linux box, so I don't know how well this would tranlate to
a mac.

I would write a simple perl script that generates a form containing fields
for person, project, and a bunch of status boxes.
Set up a file for each project
Set a line in the file for each user, created when they first access a
project. Line would be name and a bunch of yes/no items
When you see the person/project pair, get the correct record, display it,
ask for changes, rewrite if necessary
This way there are no hard limits on the number of projects and people
This is a slow, inefficient data base but for small numbers of items that is
not important
Then write a second script to show status of all projects & people, or allow
the use of 'all' for projects and people

I realize there are complications because of the looping nature of perl and
cgi but this is the essence of it.

Stuart

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