Editing converted files

The are several software packages that allow you to edit web pages (e.g. Frontpage or Dreamweaver), but Mozilla has a very interesting freely available tool called NVU (http://www.nvu.com/). Editing a web page is as simple as writing text in a word processor. The design of your survey may affect the response rate so make sure every aspect of your survey is perfect!

OSuCre creates several files. These files will be in a folder inside My Documents\OSuCre\your project. Let's first have a look at what these files stand for:

empty.html and empty.php: these allow you to erase the database. Both files are needed to if you want to be able to clear your database. They should not be edited.

fetch.html and fetch.php: these files enable you to download the data from the server. They should not be edited.

frames.php: the questionnaire consists of three frames: one for the banner (hoofding.php) (if needed), one for the progress indicator (meter.php) and one for the survey itself (newn.php). If you don't want to use any of these frames, just delete the frames.php file and change the link on the index.php file to point to new1.php (not recommended for inexperienced users).

hoofding.php: this file contains the banner

meter.php: this file holds the progress indicator

newn.php: these are the survey pages themselves. They can be edited as needed. Note that Dreamweaver indicates where any hidden code was added by a yellow shield. Do not remove these shields! The survey will stop working. NVU has similar issues. See the note at the end of this page.

new_error.php: this is what respondents see when an error occurs during data transfer.

new_reply.php: edit this file to change what participants get to see when the survey is finished.

post.php: this file is needed to save the answers to the database. Each survey page calls the post.php script to send data to the server. Never edit this file unless you really know what you're doing!

IMPORTANT: Never copy questions (radio buttons, check boxes, ...) to other survey pages! Each question has a specific number. When copying a question, this number will be copied too, and thus it will overwrite the original question. Changing this number is not a solution, since the data processor (post.php) does not know what to do with the new variable so it will simply be omitted. If the basic structure of your survey needs to be changed, then modify your syntax file.