500- Internal Server Error

The empty post- I think I hit the wrong key or something and somehow wound up with an additional blank form for another post.. I couldn't figure out how to delete it so I just left it blank. I could only see options to edit but not delete?

Oh, and you mentioned the post that was a large quote that I had not added anything to... actually, that was another error on my part I am sure... I was trying to just quote Krileon's reply to me but somehow quoted everything instead of just his reply... this is what I was asking:

"I have looked at some 3rd party form extensions, blog and article options. With the form options, I see how I can create a form that you can have an end user fill out and then send the results in an email to the administrator. I really don't want the data sent in an email, though. When the end user clicks a "save" button, I just want the data to be saved to the users record and displayed so that other users with whom they have a CB "Connection" can read the results. Any suggestions for Form plugins or am I more likely to get the result I want with a blog or article option I describe below?

I also thought there might be a way to use CB Blogs or CB Articles options but I am not trying to set up a blogging site. I want the end user to write about specific topics- or categories. I can set up categories for articles for the various topics- i.e. "Childhood," "Teens," etc, but can't figure out a way for a "blank" article to show up on it's own tab? Maybe I am missing something or it isn't possible? Since it doesn't seem possible to use the Text Edit Area fields as blog or article posts, is there a way to use a blank blog or article on a tab so it is similar to a Text Edit Area field that the end user could fill in and save to their own record in the Edit page and then have it display on the Read page? I would prefer the article display on it's own tab rather than just a link to an article??

Is any of this possible?

As always, I do appreciate your feedback, advise and help."

The text area fields are a PERFECT solution, Heyai, and exactly what I had been doing and it was all going great and I loved it but kept having errors that Krileon had looked at and other's at Ixwebhosting and Siteground all looked at and ultimately Krileon had told me:

"Your issue is you're trying to cram so much data into a single table row. That's just not ideal. CB profiles are not Joomla articles. They have dynamic struct while Joomlas do not. CB table can end up with 100+ columns while Joomlas do not. Each column cuts into the row size limits. So the more fields, the more content in those fields, then the closer you get to those limits. Having fields that allow unlimited amount of paragraphs is going to cause you to hit these limits time and time again as users add more and more information to them...

I would recommend using CB Blogs to store and display this information so it's stored in Joomlas content tables and won't negatively impact your CB table row size limits. The alternative suggestion was to use a 3rd party form extension then just pull the results of that form extension into CB using a CB Query Field. This splits the storage demands up and improves performance."

I was trying to figure out a way to use the blog option or maybe an article option in place of the text-edit fields for this reason. I don't want the end user to just write random blog posts or articles, though. I need a way to replace the text-edit fields with either a blog or article that has the topic pre-defined so that the end user stays on-topic for that tab but have sufficient space to write multiple paragraphs and upload various media within that blog or article. I need for the blog or article option to act much like the text-edit fields do but without the limitations. I am also looking at "form" options. The latest I am looking at is Flexicontent but not sure if that is going to work.

Argh. Sorry, I didn't make the connection that this is what caused your problem in the first place. Shouldn't post too late at night.
I do have the feeling that you might be able to use CB Blogs somehow in connection with auto actions, query field and conditionals... but I haven't played around with it enough to give advise.

Hm. Interesting. I was not familiar with "Auto Actions" at all. Watching a webinar. Wondering if there would be a way to continue using the CB Text Edit field but then have something to trigger copying contents from the field into a blog post or article and saving contents as blog post or article post outside of the CB db to avoid the problem with too much data, and then if one comes back to that tab page, have a trigger to load the saved blog post or article... ?? Thanks for giving me a direction to go in and will explore others you mentioned as well. Thanks!

The form options would be RS Forms for example. How the forms behave is entirely up to you. I don't have extended experience with such extensions though so I can't suggest too much.

You can continue to use text editor fields, but you're going to have to sacrifice other fields to do it. This is purely due to row size limitations. This is not a CB limitation. It's purely a database limitation. Ideally your site should have no more than 100-150 fields. If you're hitting 200 or so fields you're going to put a lot of stress on your users as that's a absolutely massive profile in addition to the database storage limitations depending on what field types you're using and what information they're storing.

An alternative is to develop a new CB fieldtype plugin that stores its values to a separate database table. This is very possible to do as each field can have its own table and column parameter to determine where it's stored.

The CB Blogs approach probably doesn't fit your needs perfectly, but it at least breaks the storage up. You could then pull the first blog of a category for a user (or all of them from a category and merge their displays together) using CB Query Field to display it as a field. You could then set the CB Blogs tab to be forced private privacy control using CB Privacy so the blogs tab is purely for management, which could then be renamed to whatever you want. An example query for CB query field to do this is as follows.

Query: Output: Multiple Rows
Row:
Now all Joomla content entries from that category for that user will output as a field 1 after another. More HTML formatting, css, etc.. can all be added to style the output further. If you want to use CB Blogs internal mode instead of Joomla for the storage then the query would be as follows.

Query: Output: Multiple Rows
Row:

So far, I am looking at Aikon's Easy Form Builder, Web Dorado's Form Maker, Joomlashine's JSN Uniform, RS Joomla's RS Form Pro, Crosstec's Breezing Forms and Form to Content. I will look for others. I have sent the following questions to each of their "Pre-sales" links and wondering if you see any question I might be missing?

1. I need the ability to create a form in the back-end for the front end registered user to fill out and then save that data by user ID (preferably Community Builder user ID) in some kind of a database that is created automatically.

2. I need the ability to integrate the forms with Community Builder and be able to display the form with the end user’s own data preferably on a CB tab.

3. I need the ability for the end user to choose whether or not they want to share their data with other registered users on the Community Builder site with whom they have a Community Builder “connection” in CB Privacy 4.0. The end user needs ability to decide whether their data is public, available to all registered users, private, or shared with friends with whom they have a connection.

4. I was having problems with storing large amounts of data in Community Builder fields. I need for the forms to save the data outside of the CB database and not have limitations on the amount of text or data entered.

5. Ideally, I would like my forms to contain text edit fields, using JCE Editor, JCE File Manager, JCE Media Manager, and JCE Image Manager Extended. If not, then the forms extension should have field types for audio, video and file upload.

6. I prefer as little coding as possible.

7. It would be nice if form can be broke up into multiple pages.

Krileon, you had said, "You can continue to use text editor fields, but you're going to have to sacrifice other fields to do it. This is purely due to row size limitations. This is not a CB limitation. It's purely a database limitation. Ideally your site should have no more than 100-150 fields."

In my last re-build of my site, I had decreased the number of fields to under a 100 but many of them were of the text editor type and ultimately had same problem as when I had over 200 fields. Even though it was less fields, the same amount of data was entered.. just re-distributed to fewer fields. Apparently having fewer fields containing same amount of data as more fields doesn't work either.

Krileon, you had said, "An alternative is to develop a new CB fieldtype plugin that stores its values to a separate database table. This is very possible to do as each field can have its own table and column parameter to determine where it's stored." I guess I am not sure what a CB Fieldtype plugin is? On a quick search, I found info about Ajax fields? I will look more for CB Fieldtype plugin on Joomlapolis but if you have a link to info, please send in case I have trouble finding it and documentation about it?

Yea, I don't think the CB Blogs are quite right? I think of blog posts as being very short where my end users may need something more like an article??

Krileon, you had said, "ou could then pull the first blog of a category for a user (or all of them from a category and merge their displays together) using CB Query Field to display it as a field. You could then set the CB Blogs tab to be forced private privacy control using CB Privacy so the blogs tab is purely for management, which could then be renamed to whatever you want. An example query for CB query field to do this is as follows." Then you gave some examples of code. I will look at all of that and try to figure it out. Seems a little complicated to my simple mind, lol!

Thank you for all the great feedback and suggestions!!

Your questions look reasonable, but the display on profile aspect can be handled by CB Query Field and the privacy aspect can be handled by CB Privacy enabled for the tab the CB Query Field is on. Regarding user ID there is no different between CB and Joomla; they both use the same ID.

In my last re-build of my site, I had decreased the number of fields to under a 100 but many of them were of the text editor type and ultimately had same problem as when I had over 200 fields. Even though it was less fields, the same amount of data was entered.. just re-distributed to fewer fields. Apparently having fewer fields containing same amount of data as more fields doesn't work either.

Yeah, sounds like it's just too much data. We've a bug ticket to see if we can try and investigate ways around these limitations, but I don't really see a workaround as it's a database limitation unfortunately.

Krileon, you had said, "An alternative is to develop a new CB fieldtype plugin that stores its values to a separate database table. This is very possible to do as each field can have its own table and column parameter to determine where it's stored." I guess I am not sure what a CB Fieldtype plugin is? On a quick search, I found info about Ajax fields? I will look more for CB Fieldtype plugin on Joomlapolis but if you have a link to info, please send in case I have trouble finding it and documentation about it?

Probably the most simple fieldtype to use as an example is the CB Gravatar Field plugin. It barely extends the core Email field. You basically would just be extending the Textarea or Editor fieldtype then changing its storage behavior. It's not an easy task if you've little to no coding experience though as you'll need to study the fieldtype as well as CB Core and its usage of fieldtypes.

Yea, I don't think the CB Blogs are quite right? I think of blog posts as being very short where my end users may need something more like an article??

CB Blogs doesn't have a blog length limit. It stores its blog entries to Joomlas Content component directly (or K2 or an internal database based off mode). So it could work.