Using Webapp to provide a replacement front-end

[peter_lboro]

I use a 3rd party club membership app that runs through a browser. Apart from initially uploading a list of existing members, all membership additions/deletions have to be done manually. The membership secretary has to enter the details of each member one-at-a-time even though we can easily pop them into a spreadsheet. The membership forms that have to be entered manually has over 20 fields to be typed in!

My idea is to set up a spreadsheet that contains multiple membership records, 1 per row and then to use an app that sits infront of the membership app. The user would select the membership entry form, then run my app which would type the keys, click the checkboxes, etc as if they were the human membership secretary. My new app would be like a ghost in the machine, phantom-typing the membership details!

For those of us old school Unix coders, we might recall redirecting stdin, stdout, stderr channels through a terminal interface. The app I'm thinking of would redirect the modern equivalent channels (typed text, selecting checkboxes and radio buttons, etc).

Is this possible using the Webapp to build an alternative front-end? I'm already thinking of possible other uses for apps to front-end existing systems!

What do you think?

Peter

[FourthWorld]

http://lists.runrev.com/pipermail/use-l ... 66433.html

[jacque]

I'm with Richard, alter the html. You can store a copy of the html page with the fields and button entries saved as merge variables. The script would work its way through every row of the spreadsheet data and a single merge command would do all the work. It would be very fast. After each row of data is processed, post it to the server, or alternately, display it in a browser widget for human verification and let the secretary hit the Send button.

Edit : BTW, I'm suggesting a standalone on the computer, not a web app.

[FourthWorld]

Peter, you've been at this problem a while. I think the solution to what you're looking for would be pretty straightforward using the POST command.

Have you solved it? If you still need a hand let us know.