I understand this question has been asked before, but I couldn’t think of a simple definition of my problem to put in it’s place. I am learning to do this informally, so I’m not exactly sure how to phrase questions/search for answers yet.
I’m trying to build a simple checklist program as I learn javascript – I’m doing this by hand without using any libraries (so no jQuery, just basic javascript). I have a functioning DOM interface getting formatted by CSS, all running in and editing the contents of a <div>, so that side of things seems fine.
I’m testing this off of my HDD and have no intention of hosting it anywhere.
Currently, I’m trying to solve my data storage problem without installing php/mysql/apache. I’d like to have each task list nested “subtasks” when selected, with one level of nesting.
To do this I’d like to create a new XML file every time I create a new task, and then append it’s information to a list file (list.xml) so that I can navigate list.xml to dynamically display all the current primary tasks.
I’ve since learned that you cannot simply create new .xml files with javascript alone, for security reasons. While this makes sense, I’m now looking for other solutions.
What is the simplest way to store this information as it’s entered? One solution I’ve considered is having just one XML file (so I always know what to point the script to), and using “<id>” nodes to slave subtasks to their respective primaries. This would, however, create a very long and disorganized XML file that would become cumbersome and annoying to traverse, forcing me to write a tricky method for looping through it.
Should I continue as I am to simply complete the project and help lock in my skills (it will be my first complete “program” with a gui of any kind that wasn’t dictated by a guide or lesson), or should I bite the bullet and go through the annoying php install (I did this on my last tower and it was a frustrating time-consuming mess) and learn php/mysql/apache for all the server-side nonsense?
sry about tl;dr please help my pynchonesque code masters will kill me
If you’re learning Javascript, I’d recommend staying with Javascript (don’t jump over to PHP or some such just because it’ll save you 5 minutes in configuration).
There are a number of really nice Javascript serverside frameworks that will happily write files to the file system or talk to a database for you. Node.js is currently the most popular. I don’t want to start a flame war about how or why Node is superior to PHP, I’m simply saying that if you’re a beginner, I wouldn’t mix apples and oranges and just stay within one language.