Custom Style Sheet forum

Vince,
I totally agree with your opinion. Even though we've registered with PHPRunner lately, and bought the Enterprise solution, one of the things we've immediately started to implement is a custom layout, with not only colors and fonts, but design layout as well.
I found PHPRunner to be a great RAD for PHP, and the openness it provides to implement new layouts is one of the big plus.
Sergey

A place to share layouts would be great for registered users.
Athanasios,

HEY VINCE,
you think, change the color in style is something special, and what is with layout \ design of web site???

and what is with unregistered users, do you think that registered users (with buyed app.) are smarter then others...

i have understand that you need forum just for registered users so that they can se more colors.... nothing else

HEY FUTO,
Looks like I ruffled your feathers a bit so I guess I'll need to elaborate a bit on my post for you which I will be glad to do right now!
First off I would like to say YES, I do think changing the color in the style sheets and layout is something special as I am merely a highway construction foreman by trade just starting out with programming with the help of this software. Reading your response to my post leads me to believe that you are an avid HTML, PHP, and CSS professional for which this type of programing apparently comes completely natural (Kudos to you). The PHPRunner software is not only aimed at professional programmers (such as yourself) but appeals to beginners like myself as well. I am surely not claiming to have any special talents that you obviously wish to believe I am saying, but I will say that I am proud of what I have accomplished so far with this software and only wish to continue to extend my knowledge by creating my own styles rather than just being satisfied with the templates provided with PHPRunner. If you payed attention to what I actually wrote in my post you will see that I absolutely acknowledged the talent of the more experienced users who deserve credit for their accomplishments and just wish to get more ideas from them to help myself move forward with learning as well (not put them down for wanting to excel)
Next I would like to respond to your statement "and what is with unregistered users, do you think that registered users (with buyed app.) are smarter then others..."

Seriously Futo?, Neither I (nor yourself) have the right to judge the intelligence of another human being based on their ability to own a piece of software nor do I wish to be accused of making such assumptions. On the other hand, it does not take a genius to to realize that there are a lot of hackers out there cracking software as well as people obtaining and using such cracked software. It might not be a big deal to those who use the cracked software but it surely is to myself and many other HONEST users who actually support xlinesoft by spending hard earned money to legally purchase the software. How -and why- would these companies continue to create and support their products without making any profits for their hard work. Aside from that, would you trust using code from some non-registered cracked software user which in turn could possibly affect all your hard work with garbage or malicious code? Why would you want to give a non-registered user your code anyways? What good does a style sheet do for someone that does not own the supported software?... Hmmm, seems pointless now doesn't it?
Lastly, You stated the following... "i have understand that you need forum just for registered users so that they can se more colors.... nothing else"

Once again Futo, I never stated that I need a forum for anything. If you read my post again you will see that I merely wish to have a secure place where any registered users interested can safely post and share their ideas with others who wish to do so. It's quite obvious to me that someone with your apparent level of expertise requires no need or interest in something like this at all but that's your opinion and I completely respect that. But there may be others out there who may like the idea and could possibly get some creative stimulation outside of their own thinking. Also, I would hope that this would go well beyond just manipulating colors Futo, but also page layouts as well. I'm simply modest enough to admit that I am a beginner and do not yet posses the skills necessary to successfully modify layouts and maybe this can help me learn from those who don't mind sharing their ideas.
Hopefully I have clarified myself a little better for you to understand my intentions here and hope you no longer feel the need to dissect and manipulate the actual intention of my post, which I do not appreciate by the way!
I also believe that for respect for all users on this forum (Registered or not) this is not the place for this kind of debate. Therefore, if you wish to continue this conversation I would be more than happy to do so via personal message or email (I'm sure with your expertise, you know how to do so!) but I wish not to continue this kind of debate here on this forum.
Have a great day,

Vince

Vince
I am completely with you on this on two accounts...
1)On your suggestion to share templates - I am unfortunately not clever enough to change colours myself. I think this is something special too and would value someone doing it for me.
2)In full aggreement with your latest response - well answered.
Admin team - is this something that can be implemented. Out of all the comments I get from users it is generally about layouts and colours. They all seem to take for granted the amazing functionality of the sites.
Gareth

Vince,
Thank you for putting a lot of thought into this. Its really appreciated.
Here are my thoughts on this. Implementing a new forum for style/layout exchange is quite easy. For starters everyone can send us layout or stylesheet they want to share and we'll find a way to make it downloadable. Not a huge deal really. In fact we've had requests like this before but the problem is that there was nothing to share.
Creating your own style/layout is not easy. It's a system issue in fact. I will elaborate.
PHPRunner comes with six layouts and five stylesheets which gives you thirty combinations. Since each stylesheet file needs to support all six layouts they are quite complicated.
Apparently we didn't spend enough time to change the way layouts are designed. We put most of our time into adding new features. This is going to change once PHPRunner 5.2 is released.
Step 1. Layout editor.

We are going to separate layouts (HTML) and styles (CSS) completely. Each layout will be presented as a set of blocks that are totally independent and can be rearranged on the page.
Typical blocks are:

• grid
  
• menu
  
• search panel
  
• block "Details found, Records per page"
  
• link block 1: "Printer-friendly, Advanced search, Import, Languages"
  
• link block 2: "Inline Add, Edit selected"
  
• block "logged as, logout". Can be combined with link block 1.
  

This makes layout a really simple thing. Layout editor gives you ability to move and resize blocks as well as placing them together on the panel(see London layout for example).
Step 2. Style editor.
Imagine something visual, like 'Appearance' tab in Display properties on Windows. Choose elements (blocks), set parameters like fonts, colors, rounded corners with realtime preview. Each style will consists of one CSS file and several images (gradients, rounded corners) that style editor generates for you.
Styles can be imported/exported and, finally, posted somewhere to forums or members area.
Step 3. Third party templates.
This is the tough one. There are thousand beautiful templates out there like http://www.freecsstemplates.com. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to import any template and adapt it? Well, at this point it's really hard to tell what kind of 'automatic' import is possible in this regard. PHPRunner layouts need a certain set of blocks defined. Stylesheets need to conform to certain rules etc.
I believe the first step is to convert existing PHPRunner templates to a new paradigm and provide layout/style editor that are easy to use. Once we have this we can invite designers (contest with prizes) to develop templates for PHPRunner using tools like layout and style editor.
This is how I think it's going to work.

Hi Vince, Thanks for this initiative.
In fact i am like you starting from a humble newbie and use phpr

to do a lot of things which i could not have done so without that.

I had also learn alot from this forum and those who care to share

and help.
I had also post a request for a commercial template that we can buy.
Yes, i appreciate the sharing of the template and css,

asap and waiting for that to happen. This becomes my first priority

as i am able to do most of the things with phpr but stop short of

editting the layout to make it looks better - it's something that i

tried again and again but gave up.
acp.

Hi to all,
A very good and nice idea to change the layout and style editor.
Just a thought.
Lately, making applications with PHPrunner, I use a table as a config_file (default settings).
Purhaps it is possible to integrate a config_file in phprunner where you can change some default settings for example table width, height, colors, buttonpositions and so on. (I think that each programmer has his own defaults for different layout and styles)
By doning this you don't have to change al lot in the current phprunner approach and it gives you some time to make a great template creator like artisteer.
I will follow this topic with many interest and i will help if possible
Jacques

Thanks everyone for all the support on this topic. It's really great to know that there are quite a few more users on this forum that share the same interests as I with this great program.
Sergey,
Thank you for the response and your ideas for future style editing sound great. That would be a huge improvement indeed. You guys really shouldn't feel as though you were lacking in layout design as all of the new features that you have added were all very much needed as well. This program is moving ahead so fast with more and more improvements every update that I really don't know how you guys do it.

As far as submitting any ideas for style sheets or color preferences, where do you suggest we send them to? Do we just submit them within a support ticket?
Thanks again,

Vince

Vince,
if this is something that doesn't involve hosting files you can post it to 'Tips and tricks' section. As soon as we have more resources like this I'll setup a separate forum for this purpose.
If this involves some files that need to be hosted somewhere send it via support ticket.

That sounds great Sergey, Thanks.

After reading your post about modifying styles to suit the thirty combination's, I realized how time consuming it actually is to make a style modification to work well with all 5 layouts. The mods I made were only for the madrid layout and that one alone took quite some time to modify in order to look nice. Now that I've tried that same color scheme with other layouts, I realized how many other elements there are specific to each layout (like the rounded corners and such), and things that looked great in that madrid layout didn't work so well in a different layout. So I'm working on the other 4 layouts to make them work well with my new color scheme and it is quite tedious indeed.

I'll post some (screenshots) in the Tips and Tricks section as soon as possible and if anyone is interested in the new style, I can send the file to try out for yourself.
By the way, after going through all this, that future style editor you described is sounding better and better!!
Thanks,

Vince

Well, I have to say that this is the liveliest topic that I have seen so far. I have been toying with a better way to get a printout that looks like a professional form. I am rssently experimenting with Flash and am going to try CSS to create input, output and printer forms that look like real printed forms with professional layouts. For the time being, I have created a form like I want in ACCESS and I export the data from the MYSQL database on line to my local computer. I then do my printing from the local ACCESS database. That doesn't help a remote user, however. Eventually, hope to have a form that looks the same on the screen as it does on the printer. I have seen some sites that do this in PDF format, such as several Government sites that we frequent.
One final coment about something said earlier. I have been much impressed with the support and updates on PHPRunner. I started back at 4.72? and as the updates reached 5.0, the program got slower and began to crash regularly. When 5.1 came out, it was a completely new story. Now it works quickly and smoothly, without a single crash. The menus show a lot of thought, as does the navigation from page to page within the program. To bad we can't get this level of support from some of the other high dollar programs that intoduce problems when updated and nobody wants to assist you unless you break out a credit card for support.
Good work folks!
Arthur

Arthur,
Keep us updated on your findings with setting up user friendly forms. I was wanting to do the same thing with a vehicle & equipment service and maintenance form for our mechanics to fill out and print so they can be stored inside the equipment. I've seen them also and PDF would be perfect indeed!
Also, You are spot-on with PHPRunner's support and updates. Those high dollar programs are useless without proper support and at the rate PHPRunner is moving, we soon shouldn't have a need for any other software!!
Regards,

Vince

Vince and Arthur and Admin (and anyone else interested)
I have been following this topic with much interested.
Reading through your comments about pdf reports/form I wondered if the followoing is of any interest - I am not sure if this is what you mean.
I have written a purchase order system in phprunner and had an issue with how to send suppliers a copy of the PO.
1)log in in http://xline.miintra.net using username xline and password xline

2)Hover over the supplier menu and click por(h) - this is short for purchase order requisition header.

3)You will be taken to the por(h) list screen and see only one record. There is a column called "por" and you will see record "1". This field is a link.

4)Click the link "1" in the por column and a pdf will be generated.
Is this what you mean you need? This pdf uses data from a number of tables.
It is achieved using an html to pdf convertor. Sorry if talking down to anyone - not sure who knows what out there.
I had tried to achieve this using the pdf view generator in phprunner but really struggled and gave up.
I am not a programmer so had to get a bit of help with achieving this. However once pointed in the right direction (with the correct files and html file structure and coding) it is now very easy to modify and I have now created over 10 similar "reports".
Admin - could something like this be incorporated into phprunner. I know there is pdf view functionality but I am unsure if this example can be achieved using this. This would be a very powerful functon. Sorry if it is already in the program and I have missed somehing. Is there a better way to do this?
Gareth

Well, Gareth, first of all let me compliment you on a nice looking site and printable form. Obviously you have put a lot of thought into this. What did you use for a converter?
I have built a similar HTML form in PHPRunner that serves our purpose for now but HTML has some problems in the visual editor in that our Employment Application forms are 4 pages (Two sheets, front and back). In order for all of the information to fit properly, it takes some pretty FINE controls of lines, shaded boxes, text and field sizes and the page breaks have to be in the exact spot to print properly. I have not been able to get fine enough control to print directly from the net. Colored backgrounds do not print properly and it is hard to really PROFESSIONAL looking forms this way. ACCESS has a built in report writer that works great, but that does not help the average person who visits your site and wants to print out information. I have looksd at the absolute pixel level control of CSS and considered that route, and I am currently experimenting with FLASH forms as they also offer this level of control and placement. It does kind of defest the purpose of purchasing a program like PHPRunner however, if you have to do a lot of custom code to interface the FLASH form to the database.
Anywa, things are always progressing and I think we are on the brink of a "better way" to do this over the net. I will be interested in seeing what changes have been made in 5.2. I got the impression that it should be out very soon. Thanks to everyone for all of the support. This reminds me of the days when we were just changing over from text based computers and people were experiementing with things like creating file selector dialog boxes instead of having to type in LONG file names and paths.
Arthur

Hi Arthur
This was done using dompdf convertor.
I have to say that I experienced the same as you with the precise requirements (like placements/lines etc) that html just could not cope with. In the end I kind of settled for what you see - it serves the purpose but is nothing to really write home about. I was amazed there was not an easy way to achieve better looking printouts on the net.
A work around I often apply is to use crystal reports connected directly to the mysql. My experience of crystal (not sure if you have used it) is that it is just amazing. You can make these reports look very professional with ease. You can then install a "viewer" on anyones local PC who needs to run this report/form - not need for them to have a full license of crystal reports. With the right viewer you can even encrpyt the reports/forms so they can not see the connection strings, passwords etc and can simply refresh (with parameter prompt if needed) and then print.
This of course does not get over my wish of wanted to be completely net based but was a good work around for me.
I would be very interested to know how you finally manage to get this all web based.
Gareth

Gareth,
PHPRunner has 'PDF view' option has allows to convert View/Print pages to PDF on the fly. It uses similar to dom2pdf converter.
Arthur,
you are right, creating pixel perfect forms in plain HTML is a tedious task. We need something else for this purpose.

I am familiar with Crystal reports. It is very much similar to ACCESS report page creation. The problem is thay the report is on your local computer while the data is out on the net. I even tried linkinkning Access to the MYSQL remote database. Good luck with that one. Ever tried to fit a Toyota engine and transmission into a Ford Taurus? Needless to say, is the database and web server are not Microsoft, they are not about to offer any type of support to help. So, what does the average user do that drops in to your site that doesn't have all of that? I recently bought a program called SWiSHMax, which works well with Flash development. They even have a demo of a Flash form that can be linked to PHP and MySql. I would like to develop a FLASH report, which would be caled by PHPRunner and fed the data selected from the MYSQL database. THEN you would have pixel level control of printed output, which you could print directly or through the PDF converter. That way, anyone who wanted to print a report would get the professional quality report directly from the net with no special intervening program on their computer. I have just started on this project and myh time only lets me work on it a bit here and there, so it will take me a little while to work out the details of how to set up the fields to that they work with PHPRunner. Alternately, I will have to develop my own routines to retrieve data from the database without being fed from PHPRunner.
As you can imagine, this is quite a learning experience. It is, however, fun and challenging and I suspect the end is not too far away.
Arthur

Gareth,

I agree with Arthur. Nice job with the pdf report. Very useful indeed for many situations. You mentioned you got a bit of help to create this, did you find it publicly online somewhere or through a personal contact? I'm very interested in this also and I'm checking out the dompdf converter as I write this. I did the exact same thing within Access (and some VBA) and it was really easy to achieve but being web based throws a monkey wrench into the gears for me!

[

you asked about finding help for all of this. When I started, I had ZERO experience with PHP - I had never heard of it before. I had only done 1 simple web page before. I called my "Tech" friends and they never head of PHP. I called the technical colege, the 2 year college and the 4 year college here. I asked who did their web pages and offered to take classes. I called the local Web / Network designers. NOBODY had ANY idea of what to do. I called the website provider's tech services - NOTHING. I finally resorted to web searches and found some tutorials on HTML, MySQL, PGP, etc. I looked for on-line database programs and only found SEF=VICES who would do it for you and charge by the month for the finished site. FINALLY, I ran acrossPHPRuner almost as an accident. It was a bit faltering at first as the "Manual" was not exactly "do this first, do this second", but with the help of some KIND people at tech support, I finally began to put the pieces together. It has been a long road, but with some patience and perseverence and this typew of discussions, the pieces begin to fall into place. I am just now starting a similar process with FLASH. Hopefullythe two of these together will prove tobe a GREAT combination.
Arthur

Arthur,
It seems like we've traveled just about the exact same path to get here and PHPRunner was the major stepping stone to pull it all together but I was inquiring about the use of the html to pdf convertor. I think I've found a couple resources since my last post to read up on that will get me on my way.
Thanks again

Hi Gareth - this didn't work for me - when I click "1" it simply downloads a "por_header_pdf_list.php" file.

I am using Firefox 3.5.
Regards,

Mandy

Hi Vince
The help was from an web firm I had a contact in but unfortunately they have now gone under. By the sounds of what they said it is nothing too complicated and any web developer could achieve the same (or better).
I do have another web designer contact (in Liverpool UK - not sure where you are) who may be able to help if you need it. I think I paid about £400 which was more than I wanted to but was confident once they had done it for one template I could then modify for many more so stumped up the cash just to get sorted once and for all - I had jsut had enough trying to do it myself. Seems whener you get a developer involed the price goes sky high for any amount of work - which is why I love using PHPRunner and do most things myself.
Hi Mandy
Not sure what to suggest here. I have just tested using Firefox 3.5.3 and it has worked oK. I also have some users who use firfox with no problems although it does screw up some of the formatting.
Sorry I can not be of more help - not very techie I am afraid.
Have you tried Safari or IE?
Gareth

Great thinking,
I like using this template.

the submitbutton regenerates add.htm, edit.htm, list.htm an view.htm.
it saves a lot of time
just for thinking
Jacques

Jacques,
Nice template. Looks like it would be very useful and fast. Have you used it much? How does it work?

Vince,
I've usedthe template quite some times.
[font=Calibri]The same is true when you want to customize the column size. At this place the phprunner-editor is also not workingfine. Still, I must correct and customize it byeach cell.
[font=Calibri]Jacques