I would go out tonight, but I haven't got a stitch to wear

[venta]

Hello! I'm back from holiday. It was lovely; more on it later.

For now, though, I have a boring technical enquiry about webpages...

My rapper team used to arrange its bookings by mailing round a Word document with a table in, and getting people to fill it in, and send it back. I thought this was silly, and that what we needed was some sort of centralised document that everyone can go and fill in or look at.

So, I made a pseudo-public (ie "visible if you have the link") spreadsheet using Google Docs, and embedded it in a web page behind a numpty password, and there we were. It all worked beautifully. (Yes, I know this isn't high security. It's just meant to discourage casual twiddling with the bookings sheet, should anyone find it.)

However, several people abruptly stopped being able to see the spreadsheet - it seems that this is a known issue, and I think basically boils down to "you shouldn't embed things with https URLs". Even if it can be made to work, I've been rather put off by the fact it worked, then didn't work, then worked variably for people (independently of browser choice, etc). It doesn't sound like it's a great solution.

Giving people a direct link also isn't working - even though the spreadsheet is publicly visible, they get asked for Google credentials. Which they don't have. I don't want to compel all the rest of my dance team to set up Google accounts.

So! I think I need to bite the bullet and manufacture something myself. It doesn't need to be complicated - basically a grid with people across one axis, events across the other, and an ability to select yes/no/maybe for each intersection. Not complicated, really.

In fact, the only thing stopping me is having absolutely no idea how to go about building a webapp/page that does that. I'm not even very sure what technology I should be looking at to consider beginning to think about using.

Any advice welcome...

For those who don't do geeky questions, but do like either (a) The Smiths or (b) Snoopy, I recommend this.

Comments

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

If it was me I would do it as a form in PHP or similar, with radio buttons or checkboxes as appropriate in each cell, backed by a MySQL or similar database to hold the contents as it accumulates/updates. These technologies are pretty standard on hosting deals these days, so you probably already have them available.

That might seem to be overkill but ime lower-tech solutions are often frustratingly inadequate to some unpredicted requirement.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Well... I've never written any PHP. And I've never so much as looked at a database (not even Access). But my web hosting supports both PHP and MySQL, how wrong can it go...?

(To be answered at some point in the future ;)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

There's heaps of tutorials and reference material out there for exactly this kind of thing, it's a pretty standard batch of techniques. And always good to learn on a practical project rather than just a exercise :-)

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

I can think of a few ways to do this - undyingking's proposal sounds as good as any - but it's time consuming to make these things work. I wouldn't give up on Google Docs quite yet. The problem you describe is a known issue: https://support.google.com/drive/known-issues/2458941?hl=en&ref_topic=14951

There'e a workaround, which goes like this (C&P'ed from the above link):

We've received reports from users who are not signed into their Google Drive account and who see an error message when trying to access public folders (i.e., those marked as "anyone who has the link" can view). We are aware of the issue and are working on a fix. The best workaround, in the meantime, is to use a slightly different URL to access the folder. First, find the folder ID of the folder you want to access. (In the URL you have for the folder, it's the string of numbers following id= and preceding the & sign.) Then, type the following URL into your browser: https://docs.google.com/folder/d/[insert folder ID]/edit, where "folder ID" is replaced by your folder's actual ID.

[venta.livejournal.com]

That's interesting - thanks, I didn't find that.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure I know how to follow the instructions. It's an individual document, not a folder, which is marked as visible - and the URL doesn't have the form they describe. I could move the document into a folder which I then share, but I'm not clear how I'd embed a single document in a page using the link to the folder.

(Google obviously helpfully collapsed everything on that support page, meaning I had to expand everything again to actually find the thing that should have been linked :( )

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure embedding is possible with this approach. OTOH I don't quite understand why you need to embed rather than putting the link to the resource on the page as a link.

(ISWYM with the folder-vs-file thing. Irritating...)

[venta.livejournal.com]

I don't have to embed it, but the form is going to be used by some extreme technophobes. It's the difference between "actual thing you need in a familiar-looking setting" and "what is this Google Drive? I have never heard of it! I don't know how to use it!"

So embedding is my preference. Indeed, if I can follow UndyingKing's advice and make something simpler-looking without all the spreadsheet furniture it would be even better. Though, as you say, time-consuming. But maybe it'll be good for my moral fibre to learn a bit of new technology :)

[venta.livejournal.com]

new technology

New to me, that is. I'm aware that PHP isn't exactly the bleeding edge of Web 2.0 ;)

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

If you make it yourself, I predict you will get (a) a small sense of personal achievement, (b) a large dose of frustration with whichever technology you choose, (c) a small amount of appreciation from the users, and (d) a large dose of input as to how it doesn't work, how it should work, features it must have, right now. Plus of course the background stress of having (yet another) web service that you are responsible for 24/7.

If it were me, I'd avoid the whole sorry affair and just use Doodle or Meet-o-matic, which were invented to solve these problems. Since you didn't make them you can answer any complaints about missing features with "I know, I know" rather than trying to work out how to politely decline or implement them without pissing the other users off.

[venta.livejournal.com]

You are almost certainly correct (a) through (d) :)

We did try using Doodlepolls some time ago, but the fiddliness of creating a new one for every booking and trying to keep track of them got a bit painful. And having multiple polls was low on ataglanceability, having one single chart with everything on it seemed like a nice goal.

Though depending on magnitude of (b) we may end up falling back on a list of Doodlepolls.

[davefish.livejournal.com]

Just like This charming man, I was just popping by to suggest Doodle.

[venta.livejournal.com]

One kudo to you.

Actually, having just had a crash course in PHP and MySQL from our helpful sysadmin, I'm all keen to try playing. Disaster may follow...

[rapperaddict.livejournal.com]

Am just impressed you even know how to do this stuff! Will appreciate it whatever it does and won't make any suggestions as to how it should work as am just so impressed that it even exists.
Plus my answer to everything is 'yes' anyway.