lchad

I'm looking for info...
Have a client that wants a form on his website. He is selling computers.
He wants to have options so that a client can choose what monitor, what processor, what brand of computer etc.
As each selection is made, the subtotal of the system changes. At the end the form can be printed by the person filling it out or submitted to the computer company for purchase. (no shopping cart needed)

Is this something php can do? If so, any tutorials or any ready made solutions?
Thanks

Sure, PHP can do a great job on this. I would guess it's probably the #1 software used to code new storefronts right now. But it's not like you're going to take an internet tutorial this week and create/edit software next week.
"Easy to learn" means 3 months instead of 5 months. One of the best free tutorials I have seen is on regular expressions -- http://www.regular-expressions.info/tutorial.html

Take a look and see what you're up against. This is a very small module of PHP, maybe 1 or 2 percent of what needs to be learned, although it is a very difficult subject (perhaps the most difficult).

I'm sorry to sound discouraging, but I personally would be hesitant to put a "ready made solution" into a storefront unless 1) I thouroughly understood the code or 2) it had excellent customer support. I have tried using PHP programs I copied, and every one of them needed a substantial edit, or even complete rewrite. (This is for solutions -- snippets are a different matter.)

The problem is, security is such a scary thing where money is involved. One bad keystroke and all hell can break loose.

One suggestion is a third party processor like SWReg, which will do a turnkey operation for about 3%. I don't know much about them except a great coder, Jan Goyvaerts, uses them! (I just bought a copy of his editing software this morning, that's why it came to mind.)

Thanks for the info. I've dabbled in php a time or two with ready made tuts only to find exactly what you said, they do not work without fine tuning.

I had my hopes up that there would be a magical solution but I think we'll sub this out!

Thanks again!