Nice ideas from other tools

[fredt]

Just some thoughts I wanted to share...

I've spent last two days thinking/searching about "how to develop *something* to store quite organized data".

I mean, I want to offer some users a form with some fields; allow them to update (part of) these fields later, other fields being read-only or hidden; have lists of data entered...

But: a) I don't know exactly and definitively which fields I need and what type they'll have ; b) as I'm not a programmer, just a wise copy-paster, I don't want to spend days phping/adapting/extending, say, News module. So I'll perhaps wait for some version of Form Builder and see if it fits...

Well, I have to confess I've been using Lotus Notes since version 3 (almost R2...) - back to around 1990. Notes allows you to design a form using a word processor interface, just putting some fields anywhere in this "document". You don't care where the data are stored - you can have any number and type of fields in each record - records from same "table" (well, "table" notion doesn't even exist) have different fields, and a same field can have data from different types. That's a 'soft db' - just like Dali designed 'soft watches'. It's a fantastic and still unique tool, as you don't (and can't!) care about "how" data are managed - just define boxes to enter them. Data lists are called "Views" and are quite nice to use, too.

So, I feel that defining fields 3 times, in the sql db, in the my-form_module.php for inserts, updates, selects, and in the template - would be tooooo structured (well, did you hear "almost impossible"?) for me. Remember, I don't know exactly which fields, types and event tables I'll need. I just can guess they'll change often...

I found some nice things wandering on the Net while looking for ideas/solutions and I decided to post them here. Did you give them a look/test drive ? Could they be integrated in CMSMS - or be a source of inspiration ? (Are they already integrated ?)

First : The Prado Component Framework (xisc.com) defines very handy TComponents: they allow to design forms, results lists... and (on doc) most of things I'd like to achieve. It also uses Ajax. Demos are really nice (http://www.xisc.com/demo/prado/examples/wizard.php is impressive). However, it's using the MVC2 model, which I feel once again tooooo heavy for me: defining info in sql db, in a class, in a xml config file, in a template. Arghh. Anyway, it seems impossible to mix it with CMSMS - it doesn't "work" with smarty.

Second : I also found EZPDO : http://www.ezpdo.net, "An Object-Relational Mapping and Data Persistence Solution for PHP [5]". It creates the sql structure just when you define the class, commits data automagically when you quit the script, handles relational joins, and manages queries in a very light way. Well, there are many things you don't have to handle manually any more: in fact, I don't care to know where and how my data are stored, I just want to store and CRUD them.  I feel it should be quite easy to integrate in CMSMS (indeed, it has been integrated in PRADO). Anybody interested in such an integration?

Third & last : The last niiiiice thing I found is DabbleDb at http://www.dabbledb.com. It shows very nice demos of nice ways to manage data in a super-intuitive way. I'd love to see this in php some day. At the moment, I think it's written in SmallTalk, and don't know if it'll ever be possible to use it on our own servers - or even if it'll ever be available. But IMHO every (web) programmer should see this.

This is a disclaimer: this post isn't related to CMSMS ability to do such thing - I really consider it's a very nice tool, because it's at same time Simple AND Powerful. And I like the built-in Version-Update mechanism.

Sorry for being so long. I hope it wasn't too boring or out of forums scope. Please excuse any English mistake...

So : Did you give these tools a look or test drive ? Could they be integrated in CMSMS - or be a source of inspiration ? (Are they already integrated ?)

Fred

[kermit]

dabble, kinda like this earlier brainstorm of mine:
http://forum.cmsmadesimple.org/index.ph ... l#msg16971

ezpdo. just another layer of code between cmsms and the database. i would hope  that the boys (and girl) behind cmsms know enough sql and adodb to get the job done.    but perhaps someone could take a peek and see if it would conflict with anything in the core code if you wanted to use it yourself in a module or something.

ajax.. i dunno.. it's a fad; nothing more, nothing less. and a not very accessible and cross-platform compatible one at that. before you go diving into the techniques of ajax, read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajax_%28pr ... _criticism