[chomp]

Good Day All;

Let me say right from the start I am somewhat new at this.

At my place of work I am trying to convince the "higher_ups_" that using web forms and web reports is the way to go. It seems the only way I will be able to do this, is to develop an application @ home and show how it was done.
This is what I would like to do.

Show how a web form can be used to collect data.
Show how Web reports can be used to report.


I have been looking at MS Visual Web developer, Macromedia as a tool to use at home.
The problem with any "new" tool, I need to develop it at home and then (screen shots and or Macromedia Captivate) show how it can be used.

Any suggestions.

Regards

Chomp

[vingogly]

I have been looking at MS Visual Web developer, Macromedia as a tool to use at home.
The problem with any "new" tool, I need to develop it at home and then (screen shots and or Macromedia Captivate) show how it can be used.

It's not clear from the above what you mean by "new" tool: MS Visual Web developer and Macromedia, or something other than these. I'll assume you're including these tools in the "new" category.

My suggestion would be to do a simple set of forms and reports in PHP that uses a flat file database as a proof of concept, which I believe is what you're talking about. Usually with management types, it's good to develop a demonstration that relates to some degree to the actual work the company does.

I'd recommend the following text for its examples:

Amazon.com: PHP and MySQL Web Development (4th Edition) (Developer's Library): Books: Luke Welling,Laura Thomson

Go through the examples in Chapter 2, Storing and Retrieving Data (it's only 20 pages and they provide source code); there's a complete example of storing orders in a simple flat file database and retrieving them in simple reports. If you understand what's being done in this chapter, you'll be able to edit the example scripts to develop a demo for management. You might want to look at what's covered in Chapters 3 & 4, too. Note that you *don't* need to learn MySQL for a proof of concept demonstration; using a flat file database should be sufficient.

You'll have to make sure PHP is installed & running on your home PC as well as the demo PC at work. I've done this on a Mac but not on a Windows machine, so I can't be of much help there. The book cited has an appendix on installing PHP, and you might Google "install php" for resources like this one:

PHP: Installation on Windows systems - Manual

Vasily

[chomp]

This has started me in the right direction to produce a demo