PHP help wanted

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Elite Baiter Joined: 02 Jul 2006 Posts: 1702

Its driving me nuts.

im trying to create a php form, when the user selects an option the php changes dynamically and items on the form are changed.

the bits im not understanding is on some pages you click the page isnt refreshed, it will just change a portion of the code and thats what im trying to replicate, when a user says they would like information on 1 item there is no point asking do you want to know about all the other items, the form should change to item specific details.

I want it to leave the choices there, they might want to read about a different item, but from that point on it needs to dynamically change to different fields.

Any php people know how to do this properly? Also its using htmlspecialchars because that should stop people adding strange stuff and having the page do stuff its not supposed to do.

Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 2:19 pm

php as such doesn't have an option for that, at least none that I'm aware of. It's usually implemented using JavaScript RPC (Remote Procedure Call) or AJAX.

Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 3:13 pm

The only option I see is to have the fields on different sites. Depending on the user's choice call a different site, otherwise you have to use something like Javascript, like Don suggested.

Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 3:49 pm

I take it you are trying to do something like cars.com does http://www.cars.com - I.E as the user selects a Model - then the Make changes.

Your best bet for writing this would be in java script - you can incorporate it into your php script off course

Elite Baiter Joined: 02 Jul 2006 Posts: 1702

@ rover yea, but some scripts allow whole css changes too, im thinking that has to be javascript.

I think ill end up having to use javascript to change the form bit, im no good at javascript.

I had a look at dons suggestion of ajax too, I am surprised its not an ability of php itself.

Master of Master Baiters Joined: 09 Aug 2007 Posts: 593

Php is purely a server side language, you can't run php within a browser, so there would be no way of php having that ability. All php does is output text. For all intents and purposes, the browser doesn't know or care whether it is receiving text outputted from a PHP script, or a static file.

You need to use Javascript. If you want to just update fields, so that for example with that car site, you chose Ford, then all the models will be Ford models - Javascript is all you need. If you want to be abit fancier, and get information from the server - say for example you wanted to do a postcode search, you would use AJAX to send the postcode to the server, and it would return the appropriate address. It all depends on what exactly you want to do.

Anyway, to change the stylesheet using Javascript:

In your HEAD section, put:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="css4.css"> // i=1
<link rel="stylesheet" href="css3.css"> // i=2
<link rel="stylesheet" href="css2.css"> // i=3
<link rel="stylesheet" href="css1.css"> // i=4
// Make sure the default one is last
<script language="JavaScript">
var doAlerts=true;
</script>

Then whenever you want to change, simple disable the current one:
document.styleSheets[i].disabled=true;
where i is the number of the spreadsheet you want to disable

and enable the other one using:
document.styleSheets[i].disabled=false;

Posted: Thu Nov 29, 2007 6:17 am

digital-one wrote:

I had a look at dons suggestion of ajax too, I am surprised its not an ability of php itself.

AJAX is what you want. Theres good AJAX tool kits which has it's own set of pre-defined functions written in php. So you add this php which you refer to by the examples and it parses as forms so saves you doing all the js work.

If you write alot of forms and makes it a whole lot simpler.

http://wiki.bluga.net/HTML_AJAX/HomePage