Path: chuka.playstation.co.uk!news From: "Rikki Prince" Newsgroups: scee.yaroze.freetalk.english Subject: Active Members List II: The Return Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1999 23:01:41 -0000 Organization: PlayStation Net Yaroze (SCEE) Lines: 60 Message-ID: <836iei$hoq1@chuka.playstation.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: th-gt144-156.pool.dircon.co.uk X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2014.211 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2014.211 Festive greetings to all. I have returned, rather belatedly, with an infrastructure for the Active Members List. Last update (a couple of months ago) I said I would create a page for each member based on what they entered into the form, which I would then process etc. However, I had rather faltered from that, as I had created CGI scripts which would work, but had nowhere to run them from. With other things coming up, such as GCSE mocks, on top of some laziness, time passed rather quickly, while I had relatively little done. However, at the weekend, I finally found a short list of free webspace providers which allowed CGI scripts to be run from them!! Signed upto a couple that looked best (though I'm only using one of them, as it has no requirement for a banner etc) and I've been playing with the scripts to get them working on the server. After much editing and rewriting (mainly coz I kept forgetting to set the execute/read/write properties, and got server errors!) I've got the basic set up working. However, I have now hit a few problems, and decisions to make, so have decided to put these to all of you so the best decision for everyone is made. 1) My first big problem is getting this to work in Netscape. As well as problems with displaying in Netscape (though I should have those fixed if I rework all the formatting) I have now found that it doesn't like passing data to my script. In Internet Explorer 5, it works perfectly, passing any data in the form to the script as I request, and the script processes, displays my test output, and saves to file. However, when run in Netscape, my script displays some output, but it and the save file are unaffected by the input into the form. Basically, I'm wondering if anyone here has a clue why I would get this problem. Could it be a problem in the actual script, or have I done something wrong in the HTML coding/Netscape? As I don't use Netscape much, could I have not set something that would allow me to send form data? 2) Not much of a problem, though maybe depending on some other questions. Should I send the data by POST (safer, passed through server) or GET (passed by attaching the info to the end of the URL)? I suppose it doesn't matter much, and as POST is safer, I suppose I should just use that. Any opinions? 3) This decision is about access. Do I need to restrict from outside (non-NY) users? If so, how would I go about it? Would I need passwords from everyone? Also, internally. If I offer an option to edit the info someone has already entered, do I need to make sure no-one else in the community can access and edit that data, or will everyone act grown up and not edit other people's info? 4) A rather stupid one, but I would like it answered: does it seem likely that I will need to e-mail from the script, to confirm that a person has been added, or can I just display a screen saying 'Thanks, here's a link back to the front page'? Unfortunately, the company I signed up with doesn't have a sendmail program on their server, so I either have to look at another way of sending mail from a script, or use another company (probably one which uses banners....). Does anyone see any future need for me to e-mail out from the script? Well, that's all I can think of at the moment, if I think of anything more, I'll post a reply with them added. Thanks all, Rikki