Hi,
New user here needing to create a form (or multiple forms) for my website. I previously tried Breezing Forms and CF / CC both seem much easier to understand. I bought the CF ebook and it's very easy to understand too.
Would somebody please tell me at a high level whether the following requirement can be met with CF / CC and in high-level terms how I would go about it? I have no problem researching and learning but I don't have time to spend weeks learning new products if they are not right for the job.
Purpose:
End User - Add / Maintain details about (and pay listing fee for) their own files to be sold on my website (through a separate shopping cart component)
Admin User - Review user-submitted details (including payment status); upload details to the shopping cart component; automatically send reminder emails at set intervals before each file's annual subscription expires
Additional functionality:
- PayPal payment automatically updates the file payment status (note: PayPal IPN notification script already set up for shopping cart component, not sure if I can use for dual purpose)
- view history of changes to a particular file (end-user for their own files, admin for all files)
- view payment history for a particular file (end-user for their own files, admin for all files)
- view subscription renewal date for a particular file or multiple files (eg end-user filtering all their files or just one of their files, admin searching any or a single file)
Information stored for each unique file listed on the website:
- 2 files
- various front-end details (eg Title; Description; etc)
- various back-end details to enable the above functionality (eg date listed; payment date; renewal date; etc)
What I have done so far:
- made a CF to capture the details and files; save the details to custom database table; save the files to user-specific directory, email both the user and admin (minus the files for security)
- made a CC to list all records (haven't figured out how to limit to user yet); show Add New link in the header (URL link to CF as GreyHead suggested in another post); show Edit link for each record (CC link to CF edit form, copy of the add form).
My current stumbling blocks:
- Question 1: when editing an existing record, how do I save the details to a new record to allow change history to be captured (primary key will be file number and version)?
- Question 2: is CF / CC appropriate for what I am trying to do?
Any advice is greatly appreciated.
Cheers,
Randall.
Update:- all I'm looking for here is a heads up from the experienced CF/CC users such as: yes this should be possible, have a look at this area, try this functionality but stay away from that functionality, be careful of this or that. If I can get some assistance from the CF community I will document my progress here for others who are trying to achieve a similar result.
New user here needing to create a form (or multiple forms) for my website. I previously tried Breezing Forms and CF / CC both seem much easier to understand. I bought the CF ebook and it's very easy to understand too.
Would somebody please tell me at a high level whether the following requirement can be met with CF / CC and in high-level terms how I would go about it? I have no problem researching and learning but I don't have time to spend weeks learning new products if they are not right for the job.
Purpose:
End User - Add / Maintain details about (and pay listing fee for) their own files to be sold on my website (through a separate shopping cart component)
Admin User - Review user-submitted details (including payment status); upload details to the shopping cart component; automatically send reminder emails at set intervals before each file's annual subscription expires
Additional functionality:
- PayPal payment automatically updates the file payment status (note: PayPal IPN notification script already set up for shopping cart component, not sure if I can use for dual purpose)
- view history of changes to a particular file (end-user for their own files, admin for all files)
- view payment history for a particular file (end-user for their own files, admin for all files)
- view subscription renewal date for a particular file or multiple files (eg end-user filtering all their files or just one of their files, admin searching any or a single file)
Information stored for each unique file listed on the website:
- 2 files
- various front-end details (eg Title; Description; etc)
- various back-end details to enable the above functionality (eg date listed; payment date; renewal date; etc)
What I have done so far:
- made a CF to capture the details and files; save the details to custom database table; save the files to user-specific directory, email both the user and admin (minus the files for security)
- made a CC to list all records (haven't figured out how to limit to user yet); show Add New link in the header (URL link to CF as GreyHead suggested in another post); show Edit link for each record (CC link to CF edit form, copy of the add form).
My current stumbling blocks:
- Question 1: when editing an existing record, how do I save the details to a new record to allow change history to be captured (primary key will be file number and version)?
- Question 2: is CF / CC appropriate for what I am trying to do?
Any advice is greatly appreciated.
Cheers,
Randall.
Update:- all I'm looking for here is a heads up from the experienced CF/CC users such as: yes this should be possible, have a look at this area, try this functionality but stay away from that functionality, be careful of this or that. If I can get some assistance from the CF community I will document my progress here for others who are trying to achieve a similar result.
Bump... if you are experienced with CF / CC, please take a look at my original post and let me know what you think, even if it is a "You are MAD, don't bother trying this" type of comment. Hopefully it will be more positive than that! Thanks.
Hi Randall,
To answer Question 2 first. You can do all of this with CF+CC, but it's quite a lot of work and I'm not sure that it's the best approach. That will depend on how committed you are to the other elements that you have in place.
I'd suggest that you have a look at Documens Seller. This is the extension that I decided to use on my site at greyhead.net. It has some shortcomings (mainly in flexibility) but I think it will do everything that you have listed here in the file management and shopping cart areas. As far as I recall it doesn't handle membership subscriptions (though it does allow membership uploads).
For Question 1; I usually keep two tables; one to track the current status of a record (a file in your case) and a second to track the transaction history. With a little planning you can do both of these with the same DB Connection. The Joomla! code that ChronoForms uses wll update a record if the form results include an existing primary key value and will add a new record otherwise. So the trick is to make sure that the column names are so matched up that the status table is updated and the history table gets a new record written.
Bob
To answer Question 2 first. You can do all of this with CF+CC, but it's quite a lot of work and I'm not sure that it's the best approach. That will depend on how committed you are to the other elements that you have in place.
I'd suggest that you have a look at Documens Seller. This is the extension that I decided to use on my site at greyhead.net. It has some shortcomings (mainly in flexibility) but I think it will do everything that you have listed here in the file management and shopping cart areas. As far as I recall it doesn't handle membership subscriptions (though it does allow membership uploads).
For Question 1; I usually keep two tables; one to track the current status of a record (a file in your case) and a second to track the transaction history. With a little planning you can do both of these with the same DB Connection. The Joomla! code that ChronoForms uses wll update a record if the form results include an existing primary key value and will add a new record otherwise. So the trick is to make sure that the column names are so matched up that the status table is updated and the history table gets a new record written.
Bob
Thanks for the advice Bob,
Yes I have a lot invested in the other site components so I need an upload solution which is independant to the public shopping cart and will allow me to automate the process of adding new downloadable products.
I will check out the functionality of Document Seller to see if it solves part of my requirement but I have a feeling I will be boxing on with CF/CC.
Randall
Yes I have a lot invested in the other site components so I need an upload solution which is independant to the public shopping cart and will allow me to automate the process of adding new downloadable products.
I will check out the functionality of Document Seller to see if it solves part of my requirement but I have a feeling I will be boxing on with CF/CC.
Randall
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