Creating Forms

which would be best

[zechariah]

Could any one tell me which is the best way to create forms.
1. Wheter i should use cgi or asp submission forms here. - i'm not good at both,but pls enlighten me which is more space saving & efficient.

2. How do i make printer friendly pages like the forums here do ?
Thanks for all the help I can get.

(edited by: zechariah at 7:00 am (utc) on April 18, 2002)

[lazerzubb]

I use asp but that's only because i know it, and it's very easy to get help in some forum if you get stuck.

I also think it's easier to learn Asp than CGI.
So i would go with asp.

[Marcia]

zecheriah, if it's inquiry or feedback forms, you can do the form itself in HTML and it gets submitted through CGI. So one script can support several different forms. There are loads of free scripts out there, especially in Perl & PHP. The difference is that most of the *nix servers don't support asp, and just about 99% of them support Perl & PHP. So it depends on which platform you're hosting with and which you prefer.

For the question on pages, do a site search on dynamic pages - there are plenty of posts about it, and lots of help if you need it.

[zechariah]

i was thinking more for generating a report. Activities for my boss. Need to get organize. I'm on a M$ server. These will be private reports - I presume i will have to put in a log in for entry so that spiders cant access the reports ? - I cant do it at robot.txt level & i presume the login will be sufficient to deter them away ? thanks for all the help. Still trying to learn perl.

[Filipe]

This is just a personal bias, but I hate PERL. If you're on a *nix-type server, then it might be what you have to use, but on an MS platform, you might as well go with ASP or ASP.NET - it's easier to learn, it should be reliable on that platform for what you're trying to do, and in my opinion, far easier to debug.

[DrDoc]

You hate Perl?

Hmm, no offence, but I doubt you know Perl then. At least, usually that's how it is whenever I hear people say that they 'hate' Perl or PHP.

Yes, it takes some time to learn it .. but it's worth it :)

[joshie76]

"2. How do i make printer friendly pages like the forums here do ?
Thanks for all the help I can get. "

We've had a number of discussions on this topic here before zechariah, try these two threads for starters:
[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]

[txbakers]

If you're looking to make reports I'd visit some software that was designed for it. Actuate is the leader in the field, and we use that in my office. In fact, my "real" job is as an Actuate developer.

www.actuate.com

[Filipe]

DrDoc,

I don't hate PHP. I did learn PERL about 2 years ago and used it in a couple projects over a 6 month period. I just didn't like it - I don't see any advantages of using PERL over a language such as PHP, ASP, or ColdFusion. At least not in any major project I've worked on.