Write to XML file client side

[reclusive monkey]

Thanks again for replying Peter. On the subject of;

Allowing the user to explicitly save a page to disk complete with form
data shouldn't be that hard to make browser-independent.

Can you point me to somewhere with examples of this? The only thing I
have seen is Microsoft's persistence; despite the official line
internally of not using anything but IE, I am trying to comply with
Government guidelines which state that non-proprietry methods should be
used wherever possible.

Another possibility for me is to use email to send the data back to
myself, but as we use GroupWise I always end up running into problems
trying to get GW to play nicely with Microsoft Products (although I did
find some VBA which allows you to email from Access/Excel quite nicely,
with attachments).

On the subject of content management, we are about to switch from
Oracle Web Builder <shudder> to Rhythmix. This may allow me to do
something server side (although I doubt it);

http://www.percussion.com/products/content-management/rhythmyx/

Cocoon and Exist would be fantastic! However, when I asked about XML,
the only responses I got pointed me to a document on our intranet which
briefly tells you what XML is. Unfortunately it was written and put
there by myself... I will have to take a look at this on my Apache
server at home. I got into IT via databases initially, via MS Access,
but having discovered GNU/Linux and Open Source later on, I am now
loathe to use the overhead of MS Access, MS Excel, VBA, Web Office
Components, etc. when the ability to use XML, an editor and a browser
now exists! The work I do tends to be on smaller scale, so hopefully
this will be something I can expand my skills to. On the javascript
topic; I should indeed ask in the javascript group; the reason I didn't
is that javascript is a bit of a mystery to me yet, but I can see now
thats probably going to be very useful to me pursuing the line I
currently am.

 

[reclusive monkey]

Thanks for the link Ron, it does look useful. I do much better learning
by example than from theory.

Being in the public sector, I guess you feel my pain!

 

[Peter Flynn]

Thanks again for replying Peter. On the subject of;


Can you point me to somewhere with examples of this?

No, I've never seen it done, and I personally don't have any requirement for
it. I was just considering that if Javascript can be persuaded to create
HTML inside the browser in real time, it ought to be able to put the form
data somewhere else than in the (inaccessible) fields, like in PIs, so that
when the page is saved to disk, they get saved with it. But I don't do
Javascript myself, nor DHTML, so this is conjecture on my part.

The only thing I
have seen is Microsoft's persistence; despite the official line
internally of not using anything but IE, I am trying to comply with
Government guidelines which state that non-proprietry methods should be
used wherever possible.

Another possibility for me is to use email to send the data back to
myself, but as we use GroupWise I always end up running into problems
trying to get GW to play nicely with Microsoft Products (although I did
find some VBA which allows you to email from Access/Excel quite nicely,
with attachments).

On the subject of content management, we are about to switch from
Oracle Web Builder <shudder> to Rhythmix. This may allow me to do
something server side (although I doubt it);

Fascinating how some Offices of governments (worldwide) seem to be hell-bent
on making things as hard and expensive as possible. My (partially
state-funded) university does the same kind of thing...

Cocoon and Exist would be fantastic! However, when I asked about XML,
the only responses I got pointed me to a document on our intranet which
briefly tells you what XML is. Unfortunately it was written and put
there by myself...


I will have to take a look at this on my Apache
server at home. I got into IT via databases initially, via MS Access,
but having discovered GNU/Linux and Open Source later on, I am now
loathe to use the overhead of MS Access, MS Excel, VBA, Web Office
Components, etc. when the ability to use XML, an editor and a browser
now exists! The work I do tends to be on smaller scale, so hopefully
this will be something I can expand my skills to. On the javascript
topic; I should indeed ask in the javascript group; the reason I didn't
is that javascript is a bit of a mystery to me yet, but I can see now
thats probably going to be very useful to me pursuing the line I
currently am.

Tomcat and Cocoon can be installed without root privs and can run on (eg)
port 8080 so you can show people what you intend. Warning: they're written
in Java, so they are massively heavy on resources, and they spawn processes
like a politician spending money before an election, and they don't appear
to garbage-collect, so you'll need a cron script to kill off the orphans.
But with a few small reservations I think they are wonderful systems.

///Peter

 

[paron]

Well, another approach altogether, if this isn't too far OT, can work
from browser to "client-side" without installation, kind of. Very low
cost, too.

Look at MovPy, ( http://www.voidspace.org.uk/python/movpy/) which is a
free, tiny Python interpreter that can run from a USB drive. It
includes an HTTP server, so you can serve html pages from the
"Jumpdrive" or whatever, and capture form information to the USB drive.

I haven't tried CherryPy on a USB, but I think that could be installed
under MovPy as well, and the CherryPy server is even easier to use than
the one in MovPy. http://www.cherrypy.org/

Anyway, if you're moving away from the Microsoft world, Python is a
terrific language -- plus, if you have to work in .Net, IronPython lets
you use Python in .Net

Ron