How Do I Incorporate A View On An External Page

[wychegnome]

I have managed to create a form (external page) on my own website with an associated thank you page which posts the submissions via the simple post method. Form Tools adds the submissions to the SQL form ok and I can use views to create a view of the submitted data.

What I cannot locate is a means of placing those views on a page of my own website (external to Form Tools) without the user having to use Form Tools themselves. The views concerned will need to allow the usual list all submissions and provide the standard search facility. Reason for doing this is so the view page will have the same general appearance as any other page on the web site.

Can someone point me in the right direction to do this please.

[alexh]

There are some API functions that can help with this. Check out the documentation here: http://docs.formtools.org/api/?page=func...ubmissions

Alex

I have managed to create a form (external page) on my own website with an associated thank you page which posts the submissions via the simple post method. Form Tools adds the submissions to the SQL form ok and I can use views to create a view of the submitted data.

What I cannot locate is a means of placing those views on a page of my own website (external to Form Tools) without the user having to use Form Tools themselves. The views concerned will need to allow the usual list all submissions and provide the standard search facility. Reason for doing this is so the view page will have the same general appearance as any other page on the web site.

Can someone point me in the right direction to do this please.

[wychegnome]

Thank you for your response Alex. This has enabled me to put data onto a page of my own and even modify the appearance (font size) using a style command on the page.

The next stumbling block I have hit is the lack of a search bar on the page. These are there automatically for views when seen within Form Tools providing the relevant fields are flagged as searchable in form / views / fields.

Can you kindly point me to the instructions to put the search bar on my own page as well as the data from the database please.

John

[alexh]

I don't think that's going to be quite as easy as it is to simply display the data using the API.

You might have to code that yourself. If you are familiar with MySQL queries with php, it might be relatively easy. I have done custom PHP scripts to pull info out of my FormTools databases and display the data on my pages, but I've never tried making a search tool.

Alex

Thank you for your response Alex. This has enabled me to put data onto a page of my own and even modify the appearance (font size) using a style command on the page.

The next stumbling block I have hit is the lack of a search bar on the page. These are there automatically for views when seen within Form Tools providing the relevant fields are flagged as searchable in form / views / fields.

Can you kindly point me to the instructions to put the search bar on my own page as well as the data from the database please.

John

[wychegnome]

Hi again Alex.

Unfortunately I am not a PHP programmer and was hoping that Form Tools would avoid my going through the learning curve, especially as time is not on my side when there are many other tasks already on my desk to do. The filter and similar options offered as part of the 'view' designs all seem to require fixed criteria whereas the built in search bar allows full flexibility.

Is the built in code for the search bar easy to find, isolate, and adapt?

The alternative would seem to be to build a 'theme' so that the standard Form Tools offering looks as though it is an integral part of my web site. I had an initial look and this could be the way forward but the example theme mentioned on http://docs.formtools.org/theme_developm...eate_theme as the start point for development isn't there, or at least the files are zero bytes when downloaded (see http://themes.formtools.org/example/).

Do you know what has happened to the example theme or could you point me to a download that actually contains files relevant to Form Tools 2.2.6.

Thanks, John

[alexh]

I don't think you'll be able to just pull the code from the search box, as I am guessing it is directly connected to the particular view, and gets data from the view settings such as what fields to search by, and what fields are searchable.

Of course I don't know much about what exactly you are trying to accomplish, but I know that it's mostly designed to be utilized by logging in as a user. You can customize what particular users see, what they can edit, etc.

I have successfully done some custom coding to use FormTools in many ways for which it was not designed, but sometimes it's just not possible without some significant coding. As for the themes, I have found them pretty easy to adapt. I have taken the default theme and adapted it for my website, and it worked out pretty well. Of course that may not be so easy if you have a more complicated design.

Maybe Ben or Joe can chime in and provide other suggestions for you.

Alex

Hi again Alex.

Unfortunately I am not a PHP programmer and was hoping that Form Tools would avoid my going through the learning curve, especially as time is not on my side when there are many other tasks already on my desk to do. The filter and similar options offered as part of the 'view' designs all seem to require fixed criteria whereas the built in search bar allows full flexibility.

Is the built in code for the search bar easy to find, isolate, and adapt?

The alternative would seem to be to build a 'theme' so that the standard Form Tools offering looks as though it is an integral part of my web site. I had an initial look and this could be the way forward but the example theme mentioned on http://docs.formtools.org/theme_developm...eate_theme as the start point for development isn't there, or at least the files are zero bytes when downloaded (see http://themes.formtools.org/example/).

Do you know what has happened to the example theme or could you point me to a download that actually contains files relevant to Form Tools 2.2.6.

Thanks, John

[wychegnome]

Hello again Alex

Having spent some more time on this I discovered that an external data entry page allows entry of records by all and sundry without any form of password protection.

In view of this and the lack of built in search facility I have abandoned thoughts of handling Form Tools activities on external pages and have opted instead for internal forms, those within Form Tools itself. This should not be a problem as my requirements are for a simple database, not a highly complex one.

I found it fairly straightforward to copy a theme and change the top of the page banner to something appropriate (for me) and I would expect that I can locate other adjustments in one or other of the css files for the page layout tweaks I have in mind. These are primarily to explore reducing the width of the navigation panel and allowing a greater overall page width for the table views.

It may well be appropriate, then, for this thread to close down.

Thank you again for your help, it is much appreciated.

John

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