Deluge Dilemma

Zoho Creator Team or patient Zoho creator programmers.

My name is Mark. I decided to try and build an online BOOKING program myself for my small rental business because I had been let down by so many programmers in the past. I handed over $ 7,500.00 to a company in Brisbane Australia who took my money and produced virtually nothing and six months over due. I had to cancel them and try and find someone else. I never got my money back. And I have had silly quotes since then, for something that I know is really not that complicated. And because they still have my money I have no choice other that to do it myself.

So, I started using ZC about 4 weeks ago and in a matter of just a few hours I had an online data collection form up and running. A few days later I was able to embed it in a test web site and all was looking great.

The next step was to add some script. I am no programmer but I have been using a Semantic Q&A program forever, and have written heaps, using their easy to add programming statement tools, including some fairly complex statements with Xlookups and reference forms, so the “If Then Else” etc. scenarios should not present any problems to me.

HOWEVER. What a giant leap it is from the ZC drag and drop to build a form,  to finding out how on earth and most importantly WHERE to add script using Deluge.

I was able to add current time for example relatively easily because the example was clear …. it said select “variables” etc. and off you go. No problem (well, one slight problem it did not mention to delete the examples that are automatically produced when you select “variable” otherwise you cannot save the script, but I figured that out after about an hour). And I was also able to add the emailing on success for the same reason- there are step by step insertion instructions.

The Zoho features are fantastic and I a very confident that it will do all that I require. I just can’t find any step by step documentation to get me started pasting more script into my application. There are plenty of examples of the formulae and scripts but they just do not tell you how and where to put it.  It might say on add or On validate etc., but after that you are pretty much on your own.

I did not really want to post this query because I felt that I must be stupid and just can’t find where it is that will explain this, particularly because I know so many of you out there are so proficient with script writing and usage.

It is just that after about two weeks of little or no progress I am getting rather frustrated with myself.

I found the 75 page printable PDF document for Zoho CRM but I could not find anything for Creator. I have read and read and read as much of the help that I think is relevant and in many cases I  can see all the script examples,  but it is not enough because they do not tell you how actually to add them. I have read through forums and watched the You Tube videos but the easy answer still eludes me. What am I missing?

Example - I have tried to add something simple like getDayOfWeek( ). I just can not add it to the script without errors coming up. I am not sure which of the Tasks or Conditions I must drag and drop into the

Script section window and then which field I should select  or what it means by declare or select variable and then how to get “getDayOfWeek”  from built-in functions into the script and save it. I know this should be so simple but I can’t find the “step by step for stupid people” instructions that I need.

Take below as an example. if I was looking at adding the following, it is great that the script is shown but it doesn’t tell me how to actually add it or where to put it.

Syntax

Validate Form Action - On Add: The validate form action script written in the actions -> on add block within the Submit button is executed when a new form data is submitted. This script is executed before the new user data is stored in the database.

actions
 {
     on  add
     {
  
         Submit
         (
             type  =  submit
             displayname  =  "Submit"
             








on validate
              {
                  // write validate form action to be executed when a new form data is submitted
                  .............
                     
                  {
                      // specify alert message if not valid and cancel submission
                      alert "<Specify alert message>";
                      cancel submit;
                  }
             }










          )
      }
 }
           

My task is to make an online BOOKING data base and simple stock control application.

Key features are:

(1)   Current date on load (no problem),

(2)   Function or booking date selected by customer (no problem)

(3)   Customer details shipping etc. (no problem)

(4)   Auto email to customer on success (no problem)

(5)   Customer login ID (haven’t worked that out yet) so that customer can re visit the booking and maybe edit some (but not all) of the fields later

(6)   Get Day of Week e.g. Saturday,  Sunday etc. to match the booking date (see above) – I can see the formulae but do not know how to add it,

(7)   Week number to correspond with the booking date (same as above I can see it in built-in functions but do not know how to make it work)

(8)   Auto sum number fields to get a total,   

(9)   Simple stock control e.g.  on any given day I may have 10 products ready to be booked. I figured all I need to do is to have another form called STOCK with all the products listed.  The unique thing about my application is that on Saturday 13^th June for example the product number will be different for the following week and so on because 10 items will be available for booking (this is a rental program) each Saturday. So when the customer enters the desired booking date, in the background I will call up the week number that will then reference the STOCK form and see what is available for week number 34 for example. It will then tell the customer that YES or NO something is available, There could be 8 available, and on success will go and reduce the STOCK form week number 34 by 1 so that there will now be only 7 available for the next customer and so on.

(10)                       The last part is to take the currency number field total and process via a shopping cart or payment gateway and then on confirmation go to a success message and return to a page on the website.

There are some more fancy things I will need to add and I may need to enlist one of you developers (paid of course) to do the serious stuff, but I need to be able to get a handle on the basics for maintenance purposes and to get it right before launching.

I have the customer data BOOKING entry form working OK and have the STOCK form in place but I just need a gentle push on how to successfully add the script into the application. I am sure after a few successes I will be fine and should not need to bother anyone for a while until I am ready to enlist a further developer.

Thank you for reading this rather lengthy correspondence.

If you have any suggestions (other than that I should give up)  then I would greatly appreaciate them.

Regards

Mark ( Australia )

PS – I think Zoho is wonderful – I am sure I am the problem