building a multi page survey - the best way to do this?

martincrumlish

Hi,

I am building a survey which is basically a form that spans 5 seperate pages, each page had 3 or 4 questions in either radio buttons or drop downs and each questions also has a textarea extra comments box.

I was thinking of having 1 PHP script with 5 if(statements) that would have each page added as an include. I was going to have the error checking carried out by PHP when the user clicks the "next page" image and this would take the form of echoing back a message above each field where an error was found.

Would this be 5 forms and then the final form would send all the variables into the database?

The main issue I want direction on is how to hold the variables until all fields are completed on each different page and then have the final submit button send it all into my database.

I have a deadline for this of tomorrow so urgent help is appreciated! 🙂

Thanks in advance,

Martin

cahva

Pass the values in hidden fields from form to the next form. Other solution would be that you store them in a session.

jbegham

The solution about hidden fields works well until you offer the possibility to skip back one or more pages, because then you will have to implement in all the pages all input fields.

If you want to do it this way, you can think about a one-page fits all solution where you have all your required fields in it.
And depending on the page (submitted as hidden field) you have to make either the fields hidden or the type wanted.

In case of radio-buttons, you have to do a bit more because you have to generate your amount of radio-options instead of just having one radio-hidden field with the value.

Maybe this helps
John

martincrumlish

Ok, I have an went for the hidden values option and now I have an index.php file like so:

<?php

// database work

if(!$submit1){
include("survey_home.html");
}

if($submit1 == "submit1"){
include("survey2.html");
}

if($submit2 == "submit2"){
include("survey3.html");
}

if($submit3 == "submit3"){
include("survey4.html");
}

if($submit4 == "submit4"){
include("survey5.html");
}

?>

In this there are hidden values passed which set the variables which in turn, decide which page to display. i did this rather than create 5 different pages.

I have the action in each form set to index.php and the method is set to "post". However, when I click submit to go to th next page, all of the hidden fields are displayed in the browser address bar. How can I prevent this happening?

Thanks,
Martin

rheroux

Another solution would be to store each page's answers into a database and then pull all the information from the database at the end of the survey.

Maybe not the best solution, but it should work.

cahva

Originally posted by martincrumlish
I have the action in each form set to index.php and the method is set to "post". However, when I click submit to go to th next page, all of the hidden fields are displayed in the browser address bar. How can I prevent this happening?

method=post should do the trick. Check your code.

I dont think theres any rational reason to use database in a such straightforward job. Even sessions would be better solution.

And for the back-button issue, theres no problem in that. Just submit the form with the hidden values to previous form. I dont see any problem there...

martincrumlish

Thanks for the help, I have sorted all of the problems above.

the next stage is form validation. i have email validation working, now i need something to make sure something is entered in a field. I want to do this in PHP as opposed to javascript. Anyone got any ideas?

I want the use to submit the form and if there is a blank field then PHP will echo a message beside the form field telling them to complete that field.

cahva

I'm not sure how did you build your page, but if you send the form back to same form if it doesnt validate then you could do it something like this:

<input type="text" name="textfield" value="<?=$_POST['textfield']?>">
<?php 
if ($_POST['submit1'] && $_POST['textfield']='') { 
echo '<font color="#ff0000">Complete this field</font>'; 
}
?>

Do it kinda like that with all the fields. $_POST['submit1'] is offcourse the submit the user pushed but because the form didnt validate, it is send to previous form. Im kinda lousy explainer dont you think? 🙂

martincrumlish

I have got everything working now. thanks