I think I can accomplish this with javascript, but not sure.
In all honesty, I really have zero experience with javascript.
But it is about time I started learning the language, as it is a powerful tool.

In short, I want to create a way for our website user to make a series of selections, be able to go back and change selections if needed, and then send those selections to us via email.

In depth:

I want to develop a "granite tile countertop design studio"

1. The user starts at the layout page. There are some grid images of which layout they would like to choose (2 rows of 12", one full 24" tile). Then to the next selection group: "tile"
2. The user chooses which color tile. There are a number of granite tile pictures for them to choose from. They pick which one they want then go to the next page: "grout color"
3. Next, there is an array of grout colors. The tile they selected in the prior choice is displayed and when they click on a grout color it is displayed as a line butting against the tile image. When they have the color they like, they click to the next page: "edge profile"
4. The last selection is the edge profile. They pick which one they like, again from images. And then click to "Submit Design"
5. Finally, the user is brought to a page that has their final design image. This has the tile, in the layout they picked, with the grout color they picked, and edge profile they chose. Underneath is user inputs for name, phone, and email for us to get back to them with a quote. They fill out the fields and submit via email form.

So, can this be achieved through use of javascript?
Can anyone point me in direction of how to accomplish this?

Thank you

I'd probably use a server side language like php to actually send the email, but everything else sounds mostly like a form split up into different parts.

Instead of all the different questions being on different pages you could use javascript to essentially show and hide the different "pages" while holding onto to all the selected values. Then when the form is submitted you'd send everything to your sever side script to process and email.

Search for things like "dynamic forms" and 'show hide jasvascript" There's a lot of info on how to do this. There's more than one way to set it all up. You could have the form be on different pages, but keeping everything on the same page and simply showing and hiding things is probably a better user experience.

thanks vangogh,

That sounds more logical, and less prone to error troubleshooting, by keeping it all on one page. I'll definitely use the show/hide aspect.

It's not that hard to do, but you'll probably want to find a decent tutorial or two to put the whole thing together. And of course feel free to ask questions if something specific trips you up.

I've downloaded the Google Web Toolkit and Sun Java Standard Edition SDK.

Utilizing these apps, can I accomplish my mission?

Why java ?
If you do this using j2ee or j2se, you will need to have a servelt container installed on your host (not that current).

Just to clear this up, because many peoples are confused by the name, javascript and java are 2 different beasts from 2 different vendors.

Try these:

http://www.javascriptkit.com/script/cut180.shtml
http://www.hotscripts.com/JavaScript...ams/index.html

They should give you a head start on what your after, but it's going to take awhile to code it all together.

Originally Posted by MattCoops

I've downloaded the Google Web Toolkit and Sun Java Standard Edition SDK.

Utilizing these apps, can I accomplish my mission?

Other than to acknowledge that what Tripy says is true (you absolutely don't need Java), in order to make a JavaScript to accomplish what you need, all you require is a text-editor, and an FTP program if you wish to publish it to the web.

thanks for clearing up what tools needed to write the code

Brian, thanks for the links. The "quiz" one teaches me a great deal about how to use the radio buttons.

I'd like to have all the "question" choices hidden except for the first one.
And when the user chooses a radio button, the next "question" is "opened" to view and answer. And so on, right the down the line.

I got my form elements created in javascript.
Now I need to find best method to submit form to my email address.
It looks good in html markup, but...
I'm sure I got a lot of debugging to do once this thing starts sending.

To send mail, you should use a server-side code. I do it with PHP, using the mail() function:

PHP Code:

mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers); 


http://us.php.net/function.mail
http://www.w3schools.com/PHP/php_mail.asp
It helps to know something about forms and PHP as well:
http://www.w3schools.com/php/php_forms.asp
If you don't have PHP available to you, or prefer another language (such as ASP), someone else may have to help you. Bring up the subject in one of the other channels.

thanks

I think I'd rather go with asp than php.

Plus, I know for a fact my host supports asp, not sure about php. They probably do, but in any case asp seems like the better option after researching a bit.

Either php or asp is fine. I use php too so can't help with the asp part, but I assume mailing the form values is pretty simple and that there would be plenty of tutorials online. More than one person here uses asp so maybe someone knows a good tutorial.