Will PHP-users pay $99 for PHP-pages from Excel spreadsheets?

darren_excel

ExcelEverywhere converts a spreadsheet into a calculating webpage. You can use all the formulas of Excel to calculate output and validate input.

Several customers create PHP-pages from these webpages to do backend integration. For example an orderform can get the current price of the products.

We can automate the generation of PHP-pages. We haven't done that yet, since we are not sure that PHP-users are willing to pay for software. The software costs between $99-$149. And we need the money, this is our full-time job!

Question: Is there any point of making a PHP-version?

http://www.exceleverywhere.com

jstarkey

I have one client that probably would. I have a CMS set up for them, but it still requires they copy and paste.

I also know of someone else that would have 6 months ago - everything they rec'd was in an access database and he was trying to get them into excel.

But, I don't know if there'd be enough to claim a break even in the near future. Possible though, I'm sure. Keep us updated if you do it. I'll mention it where appropriate.

DAC

The price seems reasonable if I had the need. But I'd be more inclinded to want a package that builds PHP pages from 1-2-3 worksheets. 😉

darren_excel

We have been looking to alternatives to Excel, however on Windows, there are none that is still developed. On Linux there are a few, probably OpenOffice is the best candidate since it can be used on Windows too. Comments please.

FrozNic

u can probly do anything in php that u can do in excel.. betting it's already done.. would it be of great use to alot of people? probly, would i buy it? no. i could build it myself if i needed it, but, most likely if my friend needed something like that, he'd be willing to pay 50+ depending on his project size. literally php can probly do everything, so it wouldn't be a bad idea. plus being able to lead that project u'd learn php math functions better then a fourth year computer science major 🙂 (maybe not) but, it would be fun! i say go for it!

jerdo

Originally posted by darren_excel
Several customers create PHP-pages from these webpages to do backend integration. For example an orderform can get the current price of the products.

Why use Excel as a database? There are many free database solutions (and quite a few that you can pay for if your customer really wants to spend money). Using PHP with a database is quite a bit easier/more powerful and you can have your order form pull all it's information from the db.

darren_excel

Originally posted by jerdo
Why use Excel as a database? There are many free database solutions (and quite a few that you can pay for if your customer really wants to spend money). Using PHP with a database is quite a bit easier/more powerful and you can have your order form pull all it's information from the db.

ExcelEverywhere is not about databases. It is a way of creating a nice looking form using Excel. The form can calculate direct in the browser of the users, so response times is immediate.

Some users use it for static databases, they define the pricelist in Excel, and ExcelEverywhere transforms it to JavaScript (and maybe in the future PHP) which does all the table-lookup. This works fine for price lists up to 1000 items.

The reason of using Excel as a programming environment is that there are about 15-150 million Excel users out there who all can be programmers, how many can program PHP?

Hope to release the Java-beta tomorrow, but the testers keep finding problems 🙂 Take a look at it, and you get the idea what a PHP-product would be like.

kidgeek_dfw

Actually yes, I have a need.

All of our PHP is on LINUX, and without the COM tools it is difficult to make an Excel Spreadsheet that is formatted correctly.

I'm just now looking into OpenOffice...

If ExcelEverywhere can do this today, I may make the purchase.

My feeling is, build the tool, if enough PHP users pay for the tool and it works flawlessly then you'll know if your market is good... Put it on HotScripts.com if it is good then more and more will support you, maybe.

abda53

thats a very cool idea.

i think $99 is a bit much.. if you lower the price, say.. a 1 time form, will be $30 and a unlimited amount of forms will be $99.

kidgeek_dfw

not to stir anything up...

I sent a friendly email to Excel Everywhere requesting info if there would be a PHP release.

A simple answer of "No" was sent back.

I felt this type of support answer was rude and not the type of coder I would like to support. We all have our bad days, but I think if you put out on a forum your thinking about charging for such a script, you'd be a little more tactful.

Maybe the coder got an overwhelming number of people willing to pay for such a script... Hint Hint to anyone wanting to make an extra buck...

abda53

or maybe he didnt get enough feedback. it sounded like he already had the capabilities to do it, i dont see why doesnt release it. if i had something like that.. i would make it for like $20 or something cheap.

youll make more money off of something cheap, than something expensive

kidgeek_dfw

very true...

his last post was in 2003, crazy stuff...

abda53

oh. HAHA

its still a good idea though..

cyberlew15

I'm not sure if this is feasible because if it were people would be using pretty little php scripts with css formatting because lets face it excel is ugly. What you could do absolutely free is to put activex on your page and store output the data through php you know like excel.php?id=5399 or whatever you certainly could save your excel files in csv format(not sure how it would affect the sums and macros) and put it into mysql or access database which is easily accessible through php but also this is free openoffice and staroffice can open microsoft excel worksheets

cyberlew15

Hey what really would be cool even though gimmicky is to be able to vectorise and image into html with css2 entireley possible just create a table set it's size in pixels to the size of the image and make each cell 1px tall by 1px wide then just fill in the colours i may even try this myself of course i'll have to adjust the image pallete to websafe colours but it's a small price to pay for excellence and a great way to protect your images from save target as.

gallaghersean

I found a script that will do the oposite of that an take information from an html form and place it into an excel sheet using php. The website is http://professionalmonster.com/FormToExcel/index.html

_theworks

gallaghersean wrote:
Will PHP-users pay $99 for PHP-pages from Excel spreadsheets?

i wouldnt

kidgeek_dfw

I'd only pay, if you could write it would go from HTML to Excel & Word without using the internet.

I have a form on CD that needs to take the return and save to Excel & Word files.

kidgeek_dfw

and without putting a server on the cd...

so it would need to be javascript...

_theworks

or VBscript?