How can I read data from a textbox with no web server, then save it in an XML file?

Question

I am studying computer science and we have to do a programming project which must be strongly related to XML and using XSD and XSLT or XQuery/XPath at least. Because I like C# I'd like to do it in this language, but I could use another if anyone has another idea.

My Idea is now to code some kind of appointment book. I imagine that all appointments for the week are shown as HTML and you can enter for each day appointment notes in the textarea for this day.

Now my question: How can I take over the data entered in the textboxes? The application is an offline one so I have no web server receiving the GET request containing the entered data. Is it possible to read the current HTML DOM from memory with all its entered values and then transform it to an XML format for persistent storage from which it could be read in later?

Or is this idea totally stupid?

How else can I put all those XML technologies in one app?

Answer 1

Why does it have to be Web based?

You can use those technologies in a Windows Application.

Answer 2

You can use JavaScript. Convert the data into XML or JSON and output it to another element, like div, or textarea. What you need to do is set a function that does all this and gets executed on submit.

Check this example. Also to speed things up, you can use a library like jQuery.

Answer 3

Being at home and offline do not mean you don't have a Web server. There are zillions of ready-made packages which offer an embedded HTTP server so that the same application can run online and offline without any modification. Very convenient.

(I know you us C# but, just to show an example, I use wsgiref.simple_server for that purpose.)

Answer 4

Why not make a windows app that allows the user to update the appointments which are stored in an XML file. Then use a stylesheet to display the appointments in a web browser.

Answer 5

If you want to show UI Generation from XSLT, the web page approach is easiest.

More impressive is generation of XAML from XSLT -> windows app (WPF).

Download Visual Web Developer (FREE) or Visual C#