need help with an EvE Browser question:

[SurfD]

Looking for some info from some of you code monkeys out there.

it has been AGES since I did any html / webpage programming, but back when i did do it, I found that the easiest way for me to learn how to do stuff was to find a page i liked, fire up the source code, copy it down, and start fiddling with it to see what made it tick.

Was trying to figure out how i could make a custom form in the EvE browser for doing some calculations, and found a nice page as an example:

the Mineral Calculator from Eve Geek:  http://www.evegeek.com/mineralcalc.php

I understand everything i see there, problem is, i have NO idea how they get it to update when you change values and hit "calculate", and i have no clue how to track down whatever file it might reference to do the calculations.  Could anyone point me in a general direction as to what i might look up under regular old HTML learning sites to figure out where to begin with calculations in forms like that?

[dwindlehop]

PHP code isn't exposed client-side. All you see is the output. Just like this forum, for example.

Read up on PHP, that'll get you what you want.

[Endie]

To expand on what dwindle said, it happens like this (.Net kinda adds a layer, but ignore that):

Client loads page: server runs php, asp, jsp or whatever, and sends resulting html to client, essentially building the form server-side and then delivering to the client.

User fills in data into form elements on client and presses "ok" (or whatever).

Client submits data in one of several ways.  Data is sent to server.

Server processes received data, and probably builds a new page to send based on the results.

There are many, many complications and variations possible, but they mainly boil down to that.  Except asynchronous stuff like ajax, which keeps talking to the server after the page displays.


In other words, you do most of the work in the php code, which never "leaves" the server.  It is just a way of building html on the fly, and processing what comes back.  I wouldn not, unless you are a bit more experienced in programming than I suspect, start with php, however.  It's an excellent skillset to have, but there are easier and friendlier first steps, depending on what programming background you do have.

Also note that this means that you have more than just a normal html host.  You will need one that runs the apps framework that you intend to use, which pretty much means something unix/linuxy or something .Net.

[Chenghiz]

I think he's asking where the data comes from for those webpages.

[SurfD]

I think he's asking where the data comes from for those webpages.

Nope, not really.

They pretty much answered my question.  See, in my old days, i used to just open up a pages source code, save it to a file on my computer, and then start changing variables and tags and see what happened.  Thats how i learned to code HTML pretty much. Now though, so much stuff is done server side and then fed back to the browser, that I cant do that any more.

going to have to start learning PHP and similar stuff.

On a side note however, is it possible to get a PHP client type thing running on my computer, so i could design and test my own pages from my own harddrive, or am i going to have to see about getting a webspace setup to upload them to before i can test them?

[Yoru]

It should be possible to run a small webserver on your PC and use that for 'client side' tests. I know Apache will function just fine, but that's a bit overkill for just learning scripting.

[NiX]

Talk to Schild about GoDaddy. He's all up about them and their hosting. It's better to be able to put it to an actual outside server so other people can take a look. I've  noticed sometimes other people can break stuff and that helps you cause the last thing you want to have to do is stop in the middle of playing to go about fixing the problem or doing it manually.