Thanks vincente!

[johnskywalker99]

Hello
I've got a web based admin tool where users can create basic formatted text using <b>,<i> etc. I'm using a text file for the creation of the formatted text as I don't want to use MySQL from the outset as that would mean one massive table for each page (tho its looking like going that way!. )

This is how the editing works, so the user never has to edit any html there given 'text formatting options' for every bit of text they append to a text file. So buildilding the text file in chunks ie (user creates).

This is my first entry isn't it good.

Which is achieved by appending three entries to the file:

1.REGULAR text 2.BOLD text 3.REGULAR text.

Once there happy with it its included in a text area and submitted to a database.

So the trouble I'm having is giving them the option to edit their entry either as there doing it, and also once its been submitted to the database.

So I was asking if it was possible to get the deliniated entry from the database back into a text file for editing. So if its not possible to do that I'll have to go down the temportary table route which to my understanding would mean being able to create rows on the fly to accomodate however many 'chunks of text a page is'. If there is someother way of trying to do what I'm doing that you can think of please let me know, I'm not asking for the code just the method and I'll work with it from there.

Cheers for the interest and any help you can give.

John

[[deleted]]

Well uhm.. I can't really say I understand what you're doing, but here's how the rest of the world deals with online-editing:

Create a textarea and let the user edit whatever they want.
After submitting, parse the file and take out any HTML characters you don't want to allow, and complete any tags that where left open (for an example, take a peek the edit screen for these psots, it has 'close current tags' and 'close all tags' options)

You'd never want to use seperate textfiles for editing, that's what the database is for. A textfile is rarely more than 2kbyte, so there's no size problem there.

[johnskywalker99]

Hello
The way you suggest is how my admin tool currently works ie. Users create a page from buttons that throws entries into a text box and then once the page is created the user submits it to the database. Then my boss reviews the way it works and says 'oh no its not good enough' and goes into how he sees it working...which is the way I outlined in my post. He wants it so they don't see any html tags at any point!. Which is why I know I'm working with an 'ass about faced way of doing it' but when I tell him it can't be done I have to say this is whay and show how far I got!...but I do appreciate your feedback on my post our current development team for php is me so when I can't see the wood for the trees this forum really helps.

The way i'm going to work it now is the users won't be exposed to any html tags whilst creating their page but when they edit it there just gonna have to see the whole thing tags and all, and just avoid them and edit their text! Thats the only way round I can see it working within my capabilites. Working on a sunday isn't it great!

Cheers John

[[deleted]]

Your boss is an ass.

Doing what he wants will take you at least a month just to create the editor....

[johnskywalker99]

Hello
You said what I've been thinking ever since he dropped the 'small amend'🙁 'it'll only take you 5 minutes' :mad:, on me. Cheers for the feedback we've not got a month so I'll just work with what I've got and work towards a version 2.

Cheers John