[Web4lib] collecting form input

[Hankinson, Andrew]

When I'm faced with a problem like this, I start poking around
Sourceforge to see if someone's written something that will meet my
needs.  http://www.sf.net

In fact, I just found this here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/webformfactory

And its associated site,
http://www.webformfactory.com/

Hope this helps,
Andrew

-----Original Message-----
From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Mark Gilman
Sent: August 15, 2006 9:51 PM
To: 'Web4Lib (web4lib at webjunction.org)'
Subject: [Web4lib] collecting form input

Hi,
 
The answer to this is likely obvious, but not to me.  What is the
easiest way to collect data via a web-based form in such a manner that
it can be imported into a lightweight database such as Access?  I
realize that one can use a simple HTML form and then use post or a
similar method to email the data, but what I'm looking for is a more
elegant way to collect structured data (i.e. several thousand summer
reading program registrations) in a manner that obviates the need to
rekey it into a database.  Preferably this would be a technology that
does not rely on a lot of fancy server support.
I've sort of had one eye on the XForms development, but since no
browsers supports XForms out of the box, that doesn't yet seem the right
path to explore.
 
The basic HTML forms I've used in the past are pretty limited.  Should I
be exploring multipart/form-data?  What I want to be able to do, I
suppose, is to be able to aggregate a bunch of strings that are readable
by Access as records.  They wouldn't have to be very sophisticated.
They are essentially just flat files.  I guess we would like to filter
or otherwise validate certain of the fields.
 
Regards,
Mark
 
 
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