is this possible

[dolcezza]

I have a client who wants to add a weight loss tracker to her site.
Her server does not have php.
Is there another route? Cookies maybe?
Can anyone point me in the right direction?
Nothing too fancy just keeping track of how much weight the person lost, and a goal at the end. Maybe a small graph if it's possible.

Thanks.
Susan

[mlseim]

Cookies would work but has a couple of possible problems:

1) People can delete cookies, so the information would be lost
if they decided to erase their cookies.

2) Cookies are only stored on the local computer, so a person that
uses 3 different computers will not see the cookies. Same with one
computer used by 4 people ... other people can access the cookies.

PHP would be the best ... you say they don't offer PHP ....
what about CGI (Perl scripting)? Find out about using "cgi scripting" ...
that's what they probably will call it.

Another option ... if you can find someone else that's willing to store the
weight values for her on their server, you can have the weight stored
remotely.

Find out which of those options you like best and let us know.


EDIT:
You also didn't mention if it's OK for everyone to see the weight(s)?
If posted on a website, any visitor gets to see it ... is that correct?
And the weight of one person, or a whole bunch of people?




.

[rfresh]

Writing this in PHP and storing in a MySQL database is the way to do this, however, not having PHP is a big problem!

[dolcezza]

Thanks for your replies.
Each person would have their own tracker. I'm not sure if she wants others to see or not. I have limited knowledge of php. If the weights were stored on another server, would I have to put it in an iframe or something? Or is there a better way?

[mlseim]

I think this all depends on what the output will look like.

If you were to create a demo page that shows what it will look
like on the screen ... will it be a small thing like a site counter?
will it be a whole paragraph? How much information will there be?

I'm thinking in the lines of something like those weather things that
a person can put on their website ... http://www.catpin.com/weather.html
it's all Javascripting on their web page, but remotely, it's PHP or whatever.
that's where someone else would store the information on their server.

But that means if I know your ID (or whatever you're using), I could
display your weight chart on my website. That's why I was asking about
how secure the charts need to be. Anything that is done remotely can be
pretty much accessed by anyone else. You're at the mercy of the friend
who is hosting your data.

==========

... and you're positive that you can't use PHP with your webhost?

[rfresh]

Thanks for your replies.
Each person would have their own tracker. I'm not sure if she wants others to see or not. I have limited knowledge of php. If the weights were stored on another server, would I have to put it in an iframe or something? Or is there a better way?

Putting the weights on another would only make the whole thing more complex - it isn't needed so I would steer clear of that - and where the data is would have no impact on whether or not you used frames.

For the best security AND performance, you should have your PHP scripts and database data (the weights) on the same server. I just don't know how you can do this without a server-side scripting language like PHP.

[mlseim]

In your case, the Javascript on your client's website with a remotely
hosted PHP script on someone else's server would be the best option.
No frames, no iframes ... you just insert the Javascript reference wherever
you want the information to appear.

like the previous example: http://www.catpin.com/weather.html

It's easy to do. It just means that the person doing the PHP scripting
would need access to that other server. You don't need to make it very
complicated (no MySQL needed). This of course all depends on how many
people will be using it. You only mentioned one person tracking their weight.
It would be ridiculous to use MySQL for one person.