[SOLVED] need advice......Can I create web pages like this??

[cluce]

Hello,

 

I need some advice from the PHP experts.   Could I create web pages that interact with the user like this using php or do I need to use asp for something like this.  If so, how difficult would this be.  I can see how it is done with asp which I am familiar with but I have been using php at work and I cant see how it can be done using php. Now that I think about it I havent seen a php page with this sort of web page interactivity.

 

http://216.110.64.105/BuildYourToyota/step.asp?Year=2008&Vehicle=Tacoma&sMode=newvehicle&step=2&source=&dealer_code=&zip_code=70131

 

I know php and how to use dreamweaver and a little asp or asp.net.

 

thanks

[lemmin]

As far as I have found, there is nothing you can do in asp that you can't do in php. There is plenty of php stuff that I doubt can be done in asp without some extra stuff.

 

For that page in particular, it just looks like a series of forms. User selects something from a form and the information gets sent to a php file that can parse it server side. You would do this in php the exact same way that you would do it in asp. The end results are obviously populated by a database query.

 

I hope that helps.

[cluce]

Thanks for the reply.  Its become more clearer to me. And it uses some javascript too. As far as forms, they only execute when you click a button. Well, I am trying to be more interactive than that, such as, the page starts to populate the selected data from the database as soon as the user clicks a link or picture. 

[lemmin]

I understand what you mean; however, that page in particular actually submits the form every time the user clicks on a radio button. Neither ASP nor PHP can catch user events. This means that neither of them can do what I think you are talking about without the aid of javascript or multiple pages. One way to do it without javascript is to use an iframe (or a frame) to include the dynamic data and have a form target that separate frame. This way, when the form is submitted, its data is given to the scripted page that dynamically generates the content. Of course, if you wanted it to do this without requiring the user to click a submit button, you would need javascript to catch events.

[cluce]

Yeah. Now I see what my options are to create web pages like that and what tools to use.  Now I just need to figure out what languagse would be the easiest for me to use.