How to use a Database? 
Autor: Organizer TBG I have a website for a local badminton club with around 100 members. One of the functions is to provide a way for members to book one or more playing sessions during the week, and confirm their bookings online. For this, I have set up a email form to capture members' input, then manually update a booking table page daily. This is time consuming and turn-around is slow. Therefore I am lloking for ways to automate this process using a database.
So far in experimenting, I have set up a database. I can capture members' data input successfully. But I am stuck on how to use your program (Website X5 Evolution v13) to read the database and display the data in the booking table. My questions are:
1. Does your program provide the function to extract data fields from a database table?
2. Does it provide the function to automatically display these data into a table page?
3. If not, please suggest ways I can do what is needed.
Thank you.
Hello Ka Fung
You cannot use X5 for this. But you could use the LuxCal calendar, and then integrate this in the X5.
The LuxCal calendar will be perfect for the badminton club. It has categories for which you could specify that bookings must not overlap.
If you have 4 lanes then each lane could be a category.
Then you could book a time on lane 2 13:00 - 15:00 You could also have a booking on lane 3 14:00 - 16:00
But you cannot have a booking on lane 2 14:00 - 16:00 as this will overlap with the other booking on lane 2.
The calendar can show the data in different views, and there even is a display that fits on a mobile
You can specify that users has to log in to see the data in the calendar, or if users are allowed to view the bookings, but has to log in to book a lane.
A user belongs to a usergroup, and you can set acces permissions for eavh usergroup.
You could also have catagories that is not bookings. Could be board meetings. It can be set up, so that only members of the voard are allowed to make events for the category "board-meeting".
The calendar can even send mail and/or SMS to a group of users attached to an event.
The database for the calendar can be both a MySql and a SQlite.
You can see the calendar here :http://www.luxsoft.eu/
and here : http://calendarforum.dk/
If you have questions about the calendar then post it here or on the contact page here : http://calendarforum.dk/contact.html
You can see here : http://calendarforum.dk/integrating-iframe-x5.html how you integrate the calendar in X5.
Kind regards
John S.
Autor
John,
Thank you for your suggestion. My requirement is very simple. It may not warrant the use of a calendar.
Our badminton social club books 4 badminton courts 3 days a week, 10 am to 12 noon each day, from a gymnasium. Members who want to play will tell us which day(s) they intend to come. The booking information will then be posted online in a booking list for all to see. This is what I try to automate by using a database. I have so far been able to set up a database, and captured user inputs. But I do not know how to use Website X5 to display the data in the Booking List.
Please find sample booking form and booking list attached.
Best regards,
Ka
This could be done using the mail-form ( on a restricted page )to create data in the database. Maybe this is also what you have done.
And then you could use the database-object to show the data as a list. But this way you will have no check of the validity of the data.
You could use the free member-system ADMIDIO https://www.admidio.org/
In this system ( ADMIDIO ) you can create events. This should be the days where you have the lanes.
Users/members can then participate one or more of the days, by logging in to the system, and then participate or change his participation. It can be set up a deadline for participating. A member can make a comment for his participation.
You can see the dates on a list, and also who participates.
The best way would be to create a system where you had the possible/allowed weeks in a parent table, and then the participation in a child-table. You set the system up to only allow members to create entries in the participation table.
This way you have control over who registers and for what the registration is.
Then you show the weeks/dates and the participants in a list.
For this you could use the AppGini system ( https://bigprof.com/appgini/ ) it is not free but with this tool you could create such a system in few hours. And then you had the system and could create other applications.
If you are interested in the AppGini, I could make an example for you.
You find the database viewer here : https://market.websitex5.com/en/objects/live-preview/371262fa-27c5-421a-9127-852da219d4
It is easy to set up and this is one of the objects that is worth the credits :-)
Autor
John,
Thanks for your prompt reply. I will look into buying the database viewer as it integrates better with my existing website which already has login implemented.
Best regards,
Ka
Autor
John,
I purchased the database viewer object this morning and got the job done. However frankly I am a little disappointed in how little this paid optional object does. The display is just a straight dump from the database table content. There is no provision to edit the output format and layout.
Thank you very much for your help in guiding me to a solution.
Ka
Autor
This is a strict follow-on of my question on "How to use a database". I would appreciate your advice.
While using the database viewer allows our badminton club members to make a booking, I am stuck in not being able to allow them to change their existing booking. For example, some one makes a booking to play on Tuesday and then needs to change it to Wednesday. As it is, the club member cannot modify his/her booking as the database view does not provide edit functions. As it is, he/she can make a new booking for Wednesday but cannot remove the outstanding booking on Tuesday. This makes the booking system untenable.
My question is, how can I implement an edit function to the booking database that allows a user to edit his/her existing booking? It is equally important that he can edit his own booking, but cannot edit other people's booking.
I look forward to hearing your expert advice.
Thank you.
Ka Fung
Ka, you may wish to mark John's reply as helpful rather than correct (so he knows to look again) if you have ongoing questions. When you have finished with the topic I suggest you then mark the post as correct so that this may help others.