Chapter 17. Managing Customers

This chapter is the second of five that outline our winestore case study application. The scripts that are discussed here concern the customer management processes, and include moderately complex data entry, validation, error reporting, and receipt scripts. The module uses most of the basic web database application techniques discussed in Chapter 6 through Chapter 10. It also makes extensive use of the generic winestore templates and other reusable components that are discussed in Chapter 16.

The scripts that are discussed perform the following functions:

Becoming a member

A customer form that allows users to join the online winestore by providing their name, address, email address, password, and other details. The form collects mandatory and optional fields, and makes use of all of the features of the winestoreFormTemplate class discussed in Chapter 16.

The customer form is based on the phonebook details insert example in Chapter 8.

Updating customer details

A customer form that allows users to update the details they provided when they joined the online winestore. This functionality is integrated into the script used for becoming a member, and is based on the phonebook details update example in Chapter 8.

Checking customer details

The complete validation and database management processes for updating and creating new customers. These processes extend the form processing techniques introduced in Chapter 8 by applying the validation techniques from Chapter 9. The process includes creating and storing passwords using the encryption techniques discussed in Chapter 11.

Providing a customer receipt

A receipt page that presents the results of the customer membership processing and avoids the reload problem discussed in Chapter 6.