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Chrono Forms/Data feasability!

Mizpah 16 Jun, 2009
Hi Bob, Max, et all!

I am in the process of looking at my most complex set form and data manipulation requirements yet, and whilst I am sure that chronoform can handle most of it, I would be keen to know how much of this can be done with chronodata, and where you might think I am better off looking elsewhere for other joomla componants! I have attempted to break this down into sections to keep it concise!

The website is car sales related, and we will be operating with both sellers (dealers) and general public consumers (customers).

Dealers:

Will need to be able to upload details of available cars. A number of data items will need to be included, things that might be tricky may include;
[list]
  • Uploading 1 to x images, ideally with the images will need to be resized client side to make life easier for non web-savvy people

  • Alongside other details, picking appropriate contact details for that car, to display to the consumer - the contact details should be selected from within the existing joomla account (probably a customised account creation process, with custom fields via chrono, a dealer account may have multiple sites for example)

  • A number of external lookups from within the form, such as calculating car age from registration, selecting the car make/model from multiple linked drop downs (i.e. model year calculated from reg, manufacturer selected, available models for that year/manufacturer then listed for selection) - are there any ajax type functions within the latest version of chrono ?

  • Tracking the number of 'live' vehicles uploaded, by account type to see if a new upload is authorised. A dealer may be allowed 5 listed vehicles at any point in time - a method of checking to see how may 'live' vehicles they have listed and the form either allowing an upload - or redirecting to an opportunity to upgrade the account to allow another upgrade.

  • Ability to 'save' a form submission in process

  • Ability for someone without an account, to pay for a single form submission, ideally within the form itself!
  • [/list]

    Consumers:

    Here is where things may get trickier - it does however look like much of this may be possible via chronodata ?

    [list]
  • A way of allowing a user to view all available cars, sorting via date, age, marque, cost - or any criteria against which we have data!

  • The ability to mark a car onto a personal short list (linked to account)

  • For cars on a short list, to be automatically marked as sold once listed as such on the site

  • The ability to set a search query, and be notified by mail via a frequency of choice when those criteria are met

  • The ability to create joomla modules with differing views - such as a last 10 listings item
  • [/list]

    I think that covers the basics, I am sure we will be using chrono in this site to some degree, just trying to get a feel for how much of this we can use chronosuite products for!

    Cheers,

    Miz
    GreyHead 16 Jun, 2009
    Hi Mizpah,

    I think all of this could be done in ChronoForms+ChronoConnectivity (with the possible exception of the modules).

    It woudl be quite a complex set up but quite 'do-able'. There is a question around this level of complexity as to whether you might not be better building a stand-alone application.

    Probably the next step is to work out a table/form structure to see just what would be needed and how it all links up.

    Just for reference:[list]
  • Multiple uploads are OK, image resizing is in Emmanuels' plugin (but only for a single upload)
  • You'l need a dealer/details table, a dealer/site table, a dealer/car table each with some admin (Ajax is supported in the latest releases but still needs coding)
  • Saving data is supported
  • A payments system - there are plugins for a couple but anything more needs to be coded
  • Display, filtering and sorting is possible with ChronoConnectivity (multiple tables may need some hacking)
  • Personal short-lists need an extra table
  • Alert emails need some form of cron job - not supported but can be done.
  • Modules you could so with simple forms or with custom modules, or custom code using Jumi
  • [/list]

    Bob
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