Maybe it's me or maybe it isn't. I don't have a huge amount of experience of developing web based data entry software but do have some. I used to do it quite a bit years ago. Used to use Oracle Forms, Visual Studio, various 4th generation languages, and performing the user interface layout used to be a snap. Now doing the user interface for developing web applications seems to be a huge pain in the rear. Just trying to get text entry fields and widgets to go where they are supposed to go on the screen is a total pain. You have to know Javascript, CSS, JQuery, HTML, etc. There must be an easier way to develop data entry forms that produce the needed underlying code for a web page. Maybe I'm just not looking in the right place. There must be some WYSIWYG GUI development tools for the web for developing data entry forms out there. Anybody know of any?
That's hardly specific for that task which means it's probably just very confusing to use. A web authoring tool is probably on the other end of unusable compared with a simple text editor.
Joey
2010-06-11 22:34:16
For developing simple HTML forms, it is very easy. Drag and drop, WYSIWYG editor with a huge community backing it. It can also integrate with PHP, if that happens to be available. I doubt you'll find any purpose-specific form editor with the power/flexibility/following Dreamweaver has.
Jack M.
2010-06-11 22:39:43
(I should probably note... I never use anything but VIM to edit HTML files. heh)
Jack M.
2010-06-11 22:40:01
A:
Most web frameworks handle form generation for you. If yours doesn't then there are easily a dozen others that you can pick up for no money.
Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams
2010-06-11 22:46:53
Django, Ruby On Rails, CodeIgniter does some of the work for you. Google Web Toolkit allows you to express HTML forms in pure Java. There are a plethora of HTML form builders for Perl. But not many of these are WYSIWYG.
Jack M.
2010-06-14 16:29:48
+1
A:
C# used with ASP.NET is strong in this area, but there is a learning curve to overcome. You can get the free versions by downloading the latest Visual Studio Express from Microsoft. The catch is that you are stuck with Windows for development, for better or worse. Visual Studio only runs on Windows.
CDeanMartin
2010-06-12 08:06:01