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Airport Lookup with Formidable

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Has anyone created an Airport Lookup system with FormidablePro?

I'm currently working a project for a client that does a lot of business from Airport to Airport. We're looking at creating a quoting system, where a user would enter their origin Airport, then the destination Airport for custom quotes.

Ideally, I'd like to use Lookup fields for this purpose. I imagine I'd have to import a data table with all airports, 4-letter airport codes, etc, which I already have.

My questions are:

  • Has anyone else done this before?
  • How hard is it going to be to get the lookup field using these? (create views, etc)
  • Is a table with 12,000 records going to be too intensive on the database, going through the Formidable system?

We already use this setup on an old asp driven site, but trying to convert everything to WP and Formidable.

Thanks in advance for any guidance you may suggest.

 

12,000 records in a table is not excessive depending on how you plan to look up the information. If you load an entire look up table into the browser when the form is loaded and all that data has to be sent into the browser, then yes, it's excessive. If you search with an Ajax function, that selective loads data as the airport code or city is entered, then you may be able to achieve better performance.

No, I haven't done airport lookups before, but the underlying data is irrelevant. The "how" you do something is more important. What you want to do may require custom code, but I would at least create the lookup table, import your data, and test the performance.

Victor - Thank you for the insight. On first glance, I was looking at the way the lookup field function already works for Formidable, and wondered if this should be set into an existing form view, but that seems daunting and purposeless.

I like the idea of using the AJAX lookup much better for both load and ease. (Assuming I can use it to search any db table) Any chance you have any tutorials on your site in re: using the AJAX function?

Fellow Carolinian here as well - In the Charlotte area. One of my sons is out your way though, working for SaS at RTP. Small world.

Thanks again,

Mark

I don't have a tutorial. Ajax searching can be very complicated and explaining it all would take a small book. I have an Ajax search here houseplanworks dot com.

I did this form several years ago. It's a custom form that I coded manually because at the time, Formidable didn't support some of the features the customer required. Most of my time was spent in building the search functionality. It probably took 6 to 8 weeks to nail the searching and develop the code required for persisting the search criteria across the site.

With the airport codes, I would still try the Formidable lookup field first. If you have to go the Ajax route, it's custom code. I don't think I've ever seen a good tutorial on writing an Ajax search.

Thanks again, Victor. I've jumped into the ajax search before and got it working in an asp environment, just never with Formidable. I'll try the route of using a lookup field first.

The website is more or less a test site I'm helping a friend with, so plenty of time to experiment. :)

Thanks,

Mark

ASP Ajax is quite different than what you would do in WordPress. The last tutorial I posted on my site about encrypting/decrypting fields in Formidable using OpenSSL has a sample form where I trigger the processes with Ajax. There's a link under the form where you can download the PHP and jQuery required to make the Ajax work. You can probably use it as a model for your own Ajax functions in WordPress.

Discussion closed.