[aewarnick]

I am trying to develop a paper work (or should I say, less paperwork and more computer work) for my company. I want to use html as a documenting system offline (this post has nothing to do with online anything).

Here is what I need: A very easy system where people can just press a button on the page and it will update the current file and also send a copy to another folder for backup and verification purposes.

I want to use text boxes, check boxes, drop down boxes and probably all the others you normally see on a form. All the information that they type has to be saved along with the html document so that the saved file lookes exactly as what they see on the html page when they are done inputing the information.

About the saved file backups:
They would need to be numbered 0001 and the next time save is pressed; 0002... and so on.

[Rockn]

You are looking for some sort of document management system. Plain jane HTML will never be able to do this. You can easily do it with a database and an active type of scripting like ASP or PHP as a front end and a SQL, MySQL or Access db for a back end.

[aewarnick]

I can't incorporate javascript or some other sort of scripting in the page to do it?

By the way, what is a front end and a back end? Also, what method would you suggest and what program?

[brendandonhu]

Front-End is the part that they see and interact with (the web page/scripting language) where backend is the database that is managing, and storing it (like MySQL).

[aewarnick]

Does asp or php have to do anything with html? I would like, as a front end web pages.

[brendandonhu]

ASP and PHP are scripting languages to enhance web pages.

[aewarnick]

Ok, good. Now all I need is some help on how I can do this and which one to use.

[brendandonhu]

Which one you can use depends on what your server supports.

[aewarnick]

This will be a completely offline setup. In other words what I am doing has nothing to do with the internet or networking.

[brendandonhu]

Okay, you may still need to run a server for this, so that you can use PHP/MySQL. Im not sure if they can just run locally on a machine.

[aewarnick]

I downloaded Mysql but I am hoping that the program does not need to be installed on the computer to use the pages I am going to make. I downloaded the beta version and I cannot figure out how to even run it.

[aewarnick]

I figured out how to open the program but I am hoping that I don't need it, except to creat a script for the html files.??

[brendandonhu]

Its going to be a bit more complicated than that. But i just tought of something REALLY EASY AND CONVENIENT!. Just create the template form. then when you want to edit it, entering the information in the form, open it up in a wysiwyg like MS Frontpage. In FP you can click a text box and set the value= to it. You can click a radio button and choose the default one that is selected. Then save with filename 001. Next time you want one, open up the template again, fill out the form, and save as 002. etc.

[aewarnick]

That would work for me but this is not for me, it is for all kinds of people who don't know anything about computers. It needs to be super simple.

[aewarnick]

I just looked at the post above yours and found it was confusing so I edited it.

Let's go one step at a time. Lets forget about having the link open the last numbered file and just work on how to put a save button on the page to overwrite the html docment so that the form is continuously updated and added to.