What are the options for gathering form data with no current connection?

[gtheobald]

We are getting feedback from users that they love our ColdFusion application, but often times need to gather data (form input) when no internet (wi-fi or cell) is available.  I am at a loss as to how to begin to think about a possible solution.

[Steve Sommers]

You would need to write a client side app that could store and forward this information. Not a trivial task. This is not a ColdFusion limitation, but a Web limitation. Adobe AIR may have this type of functionaliy but that's about all I know about the AIR product. There may also be some limited ability to store and forward in Flash Forms, but again, I do not have hands on experience with this product either. Good luck.

[BKBK]

gtheobald wrote:

We are getting feedback from users that they love our ColdFusion application, but often times need to gather data (form input) when no internet (wi-fi or cell) is available.  I am at a loss as to how to begin to think about a possible solution.

I am at a loss, too, how your users can browse the form when no internet is available. In any case, there is a simple solution to your problem. Send them a PDF or Word form by e-mail.

[Cole]

Are your users using a modern browser that support HTML5?  If so, first you'd have to write a javascript routine that determined if your user has an internet connection.  Investigate the navigator.onLine property, or you could probably try/catch a XHR request.  On every page request, you'd have to check if you were online, if you are offline, instead of submitting form data to your server, use javascript to serialize your form and store it using HTML5 localStorage.  When you user finally does come online, you'd need to have a routine that passes the data stored in localStorage to your server.