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Using chronoforms-connectivity for daily deal site

atopps 06 Jul, 2010
Fellow Chrono-ites,

I have a project I'm working on to create a daily deal site similar to groupon.com. I think chronoforms, and chronoconnectivity will be instrumental in helping me to develop what I need.. However, I'm a total newb when it comes to php (although I have all the concepts down) as well as these with these wonderful tools.

My aim is to develop the application I need, with help from the experts here, and to ultimately post a tutorial to give back to this helpful community. Along the way, I hope to also learn a heck of a lot about how powerful these extensions are and how to properly use them so that I can help others get off the ground as well.

Here is a breakdown of what I want to accomplish:
- daily deals would be posted as new articles on the main page
- I will develop a special article template, most likely using modules anywhere.
- each deal will have several variables which are specific and unique to that deal and will need to be passed and updated between the front-end and DB.
- price, and other static price-related bits of information
- Sales counter - which will need to be incremented everytime a user buys a deal (ie, submits my payment info form and the transaction is authorized)
- a minimum trigger point, which the sales counter will need to exceed in order for the deal to be "on".

Here is where I need your help - I want to make sure my logic is sound and that I am approaching this in the correct, most secure and most efficient way. I also know that these extensions have the capability to do what I need, but I do not know exactly how as of yet.

My plan: to store the needed variables, I will use a table where each rows will correspond to article id numbers (so that each deal will have unique values that can be recalled anytime) and the data will be stored in the columns.

Questions to you guys:
1. Does this sound reasonable in the context I've laid out? Is using article ids to correspond to table rows feasible?
2. Is it secure and efficient, or might there be a better way?
3. How could I go about initially setting each variable for a given article? Could a special admin-only form facilitate this?
4. How could I go about incrementing the sales counter variable on submission and approval of the checkout form (through authorize.net)?

I think (or hope) I can figure out how to call the values using connectivity once they are setup and the functions work.

I also think that hidden fields will definitely play a role in this somehow, but just not sure how yet.

My goal for this thread is to really get a discussion going and to keep everyone updated of my progress as i work through this. I know there are a ton of very smart users and contributors here who have a huge wealth of knowledge - and i hope to tap into that and give something back at the same time.

I really look forward to hearing what u guys have to say on some of the initial questions and very much appreciate any and all assistance.

Thanks and best regards,
Alex
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