Appnitro Software Forums » MachForm

Feature questions

(3 posts)
  • Started 2 years ago by goldpelican
  • Latest reply from AMurray

  1. goldpelican
    Member

    Hi,

    I have a forms requirement and have a few evaluation questions about MachForm. Found this product via www.phpform.org which I used to generate a static mockup for a web page.

    My understanding is that MachForm is basically a PHP/MySQL forms engine that allows you to manage forms via a web interface, and use a supplied forms handler to save submissions into MySQL? If this understanding is correct, could you provide responses to the following questions please:

    1. Can MachForm forms only function as standalone pages that require restyling to "blend" into a web application, or is it possible to embed MachForm generated forms within another web page e.g. within custom developed PHP/JSP etc? If so, are there techniques other than iframes to achieve this embedding?

    2. Can MachForm submissions only be stored into the database tables that MachForm creates? I have an existing schema I need a form front end for, and would rather avoid using triggers to cross populate existing tables from MachForm tables (but can accept it as a product limitation).

    3. Can MachForm forms be pre-populated with existing data, enabling users to update the data rather than just create a new submission? e.g. updating an existing customer profile with a new address - can the existing customer data be loaded into the form for editing?

    4. Is the "password protected" feature a common password for all users?

    I'm not sure if MachForm is currently suited to my needs, or if I'm better off using pForm to generate static forms, and write my own form handlers (which I would rather avoid!).

    thanks

    Posted 2 years ago #

  2. goldpelican
    Member

    Another question...

    5. Can MachForm dynamically generate radio/checkbox lists based on values in a database table? One of my form requirements is for a user to select checkboxes in a form where the titles for the checkboxes are unique to that user, and the values of the checkbox fields are an underlying primary key from a table. The table entries that would be used to generate the checkbox lists are unique for each user. If this feature isn't available, do you think the product would be capable of being customised by a developer to implement this?

    Posted 2 years ago #

  3. AMurray
    Pro Member

    1. Can MachForm forms only function as standalone pages that require restyling to "blend" into a web application, or is it possible to embed MachForm generated forms within another web page e.g. within custom developed PHP/JSP etc? If so, are there techniques other than iframes to achieve this embedding?

    Yes, you can edit the CSS file that is associated with the individual forms created. There are basic templates provided, that you have to download and implement the CSS files for the particular forms. You can also embed the forms, by way of an Iframe (simple), or PHP code (advanced), or simply provide a link to the form as it is. As such there's no GUI kind of interface to change the style of the form, if that's what you mean.

    2. Can MachForm submissions only be stored into the database tables that MachForm creates? I have an existing schema I need a form front end for, and would rather avoid using triggers to cross populate existing tables from MachForm tables (but can accept it as a product limitation).
    No, it requires its own specific database tables. You can probably specify the same database as used for some other application, and it will create its own tables etc as required, but if your host gives you more than one DB in your hosting package, I suggest using a new/separate database.

    3. Can MachForm forms be pre-populated with existing data, enabling users to update the data rather than just create a new submission? e.g. updating an existing customer profile with a new address - can the existing customer data be loaded into the form for editing?

    It's not a multi user system, so users can't update their own submissions. Not sure about the prepopulating thing, you can import the database structure and data, sure, but you need to know how the DB is designed to do that. You would have to do that through phpMyAdmin typically used with Linux accounts to administer MySQL databases.

    4. Is the "password protected" feature a common password for all users?
    Yes, the password is just one single password that any user would require to submit to the form.

    5. Can MachForm dynamically generate radio/checkbox lists based on values in a database table? One of my form requirements is for a user to select checkboxes in a form where the titles for the checkboxes are unique to that user, and the values of the checkbox fields are an underlying primary key from a table. The table entries that would be used to generate the checkbox lists are unique for each user. If this feature isn't available, do you think the product would be capable of being customised by a developer to implement this?

    I don't believe that's possible without modification to the code.

    Note, the Machform application has to reside on ONE server (single licence) but you can embed the forms on any website. Otherwise, you need to purchase a licence-per-domain if you intend to install the application on multiple websites.

    Posted 2 years ago #

RSS feed for this topic

Reply

You must log in to post.