Question

This is very hard to explain but I’m going to try.

We run a motor shop that has a QC program. The program was coded in access97 and it’s time for an upgrade, we have elected to try a PHP/MySQL approach to do this.

Right now the access software has several pages to the form and each box sends to the database live so when you type something in you don’t have to hit a save button or next or anything and when you come back it’s there.

Also the forms are driven by an auto-incremented job number that you can punch into a field at the top of the page and it query’s the server and displays all the data in the form boxes so you can edit it.

I don’t know how to even start this project. I got a working form and an insert.php page but I don’t know how to go about the rest.

If I could get a pointer in the right direction that would be appreciated. Thanks!

Answer 1

I have created a simple example here:

HTML/JS:
shaquin.tk/experiments/ajax.html,

PHP: shaquin.tk/experiments/qc.txt.

Have a look at the source to see how it works (I also have some comments in my code), feel free to copy it and modify for your own needs.

To sum up how it works:

• When text is typed into a text box, a list of changed elements is updated.
• Every updateInterval milliseconds (default 1000), the list is checked. (This helps reduce traffic and lag.) If anything has changed, the PHP file is called to update the database, and the list is cleared.
• If an element loses focus and it has changed (e.g. copy/paste), the PHP file is called.
• The PHP file sanitizes the query, checks for a valid job number, and updates the database.

References:

AJAX XMLHttpRequest

setInterval

addEventListener

encodeURI
mysqli_connect

mysqli_query

mysqli_real_escape_string