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Suggestions for creating a stand-alone version of an online form?

I work in a school district where teachers submit their lesson plans to their principals online.

They do this using an online form I wrote using PHP / MySQL and it uses TinyMCE for its textareas. One of the main features that was requested was for teachers to be able to save their unfinished forms as projects for submission later. This has been implemented, but a new problem I am facing is that not all teachers have access to the Internet at home, so they cannot work on their lesson plans at home.

Sure, they can cut and paste from a text file or a text file they save on their laptops, but then they have to cut / paste one text box at a time and they complain about it.

So I was thinking about trying, making a standalone application similar to an online form, but saving the form in xml format on my computer. They can then open this file to proceed, or upload it to an online form later.

My question is that currently my programming experience is limited to a few web languages ​​(php, javascript, html), what should I use to try and write this offline application? Winbinder? Adobe AIR?

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I actually went with Adobe AIR to do this. With AIR, the form looks almost identical to the one used on the web, and even uses the same TinyMCE library. And I didn't have to learn much to get it, just a JavaScript JavaScript API.



I also use AIR to write several other applications, and I love it.

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I think your best bet is to ask them to install Google Gears in their browser (which defaults to the Google iirc toolbar) which is perfect for storing content offline. And then, once they go online, it's easy to sync the saved content with your online server.



The Gears API documentation can be found here .

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How are teachers currently working on their lesson plans offline?

If they do it in plain text, for example, maybe you can just add a file upload field. They would download their file (which was working offline) and your web application parsed it and split it into appropriate sections.

(If rich text is required, they can use a Word document.)

To help with parsing, you can tell them to use the section headers - perhaps special words in all caches - or provide them with a sample template (which displays directly in the web form) to get started.

The idea here is that you can minimize the changes that teachers need to make. They are already used to what they are doing now, so work with their current habits. It would be easier if they changed and did something new. Installing a new standalone application on their computers is almost certainly a significant barrier.

(While I was typing this answer, Josh Curren provided a similar option.)

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I would save the form to a text file that they can save to their desktop, then download it and read it in the form later. You will need to provide them with a template so that whatever they enter is in the correct order.

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One easy option is to create a regular desktop application that they can install locally and take with them. You have an in-app download function that allows them to send it when they are connected to the internet.

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Another option is to create an editable PDF of the form, then either a) submit them in full, or b) parse the field data on the server side.

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IF they use Internet Explorer at BOTH school and at home, you can provide them with a form on a web page saved in the web archive format, * .mht. They fill out the form at home and save it in the same * .mht format. When they return to school, they open the page and submit it.

This should work and should be easy to implement. I tried this on this post but ran into problems somewhere between captcha and openid login. Try your shape.

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