Hi,Thanks for sharing this very good blog. Very inspiring! (as always, btw)…

A good post on "Changes to Microsoft Office Live Small Business". We are VA4World a virtual assistant firm who provide admin support service for SME’s all over the world. We would like to hear your feedback.

Thanks,
Sridhar – VA4World for viral marketing, SEO and admin support

http://creatorexport.zoho.com/lockworld/sample-catalog-function/json/View_Sample_Catalog/

But the JSON output they provide is missing the variable declaration at the beginning (var xyz=), so I have no idea how you would use it.

Instead, figure out the ID of the view you want to export (You can do this by editing the view you want to export in Zoho Creator, and looking for the number in the URL after your username. For example, the sample catalog's ID is 6, which I can find because when I click the "edit" link from the catalog, the URL I'm taken to is http://creator.zoho.com/lockworld/view/6/edit/).

Once you know the ID number of the view you want to use, you can incorporate it into a link formatted like the one below:

http://creator.zoho.com/{Your Username}/json/{The View ID}/

For example, the sample catalog's JSON URL is:

http://creator.zoho.com/lockworld/json/6/

This URL will export the JSON feed correctly, and you can follow the instructions above to try to parse out the data to display on your website.

I haven't really given this catalog a second look since I initially wrote this post in 2007, but it does appear that Zoho has made some changes, and the PayPal button is no longer showing up in the catalog displayed on their site.

I'm a little disappointed, since even the folks over at Zoho sounded like they were pretty impressed with the idea of combining Zoho Creator with PayPal (See this post from the Zoho blog). But for whatever reason, they are now preventing the PayPal forms from displaying within Zoho's website.

The problem seems to be on Zoho's end rather than in the steps I've outline in my post…if you try to edit any of the records in your database or in the Sample Catalog, you'll notice that the PayPal form is correctly coded. But when viewed in Zoho Creator, the buttons do not show up and if you look at the HTML output on the page, the entire form is missing.

I don't know of any solution to get the PayPal buttons to display from Zoho's website. You might be able to contact Zoho's customer support to see if they'd be willing to fix the error, but I suspect that, for whatever reason, they made that change on purpose and will be unlikely to reverse it.

The catalog function will work on your own website (if you have one) if you're willing to go through the (one-time) painful process of parsing the JSON feed. I have some basic instructions available here that might get you started.

Unfortunately, I noticed that if you use the link that Zoho provides in the "More actions" => "Export data" => "JSON feed" menu option, the JSON feed is incorrectly formed. They'll give you a link something like this:

http://creatorexport.zoho.com/lockworld/sample-catalog-function/json/View_Sample_Catalog/

But the JSON output they provide is missing the variable declaration at the beginning (var xyz=), so I have no idea how you would use it.

Instead, figure out the ID of the view you want to export (You can do this by editing the view you want to export in Zoho Creator, and looking for the number in the URL after your username. For example, the sample catalog's ID is 6, which I can find because when I click the "edit" link from the catalog, the URL I'm taken to is http://creator.zoho.com/lockworld/view/6/edit/).

Once you know the ID number of the view you want to use, you can incorporate it into a link formatted like the one below:

http://creator.zoho.com/{Your Username}/json/{The View ID}/

For example, the sample catalog's JSON URL is:

http://creator.zoho.com/lockworld/json/6/

This URL will export the JSON feed correctly, and you can follow the instructions in my post to try to parse out the data to display on your website.

Not much fun, but it should work.

Hope this helps…sorry that things aren't as easy as they once were…

-Lockworld Herald

P.S. It's problems like these that really caused me to abandon this blog. Third-party services are always changing what they offer and how they offer it. I finally bit the bullet and started paying for Web hosting for my various websites. Now, instead of fiddling around with someone else's database, I have my own MySQL database that will never really change until/unless I want it to.

I'm not trying to push anything here, and I realize that's not a viable option for many people, but thought I'd throw it out there in case it might be helpful. (OK, so maybe I'm just looking for an excuse to get on my soapbox…LOL)

It has been several years since I've paid any attention to this blog, so I don't have a Twitter account related to this blog or Web site. If I start posting again, I will probably set up a Twitter account to highlight any new posts.

Thanks for your interest…

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Sorry for offtopic

Your comment was really helpful. It turns out the main problem I was having is that I was not using the right application name.

I’ve been experiencing problems with some of my JSON feeds, so the first thing you’ll want to do is to ensure that your JSON feed is working properly. Open the Zoho View you want to export, click on the “Export” link, and click on the “public link” for the JSON feed (you may need to enable private links for your application). You should see some garbled data starting with “var zoho{your user name}view{number} =” – if you see “//Error occured while fetching data. Your data is safe,” or some other error message, you may need to contact Zoho’s customer support (http://creator.zoho.com/talkback.do) for more assistance. In my case, this problem has to do with the use of multi-select fields within the database.

If you don’t see the error above, here’s how you process JSON feeds from Zoho Creator:

Step 1: Load the data

From any view in your Zoho Creator application, click on “Export Data” from the top of the view. If your application is listed as “private,” you will need to click the “enable private links” button to create a set of “public links” to your data.

Copy the location of the “private link” hyperlink next to the image.

In the HTML code of the page where you want to load the data, enter <script src=”{THE URL YOU COPIED}“></script>

Step 2: Parse the data
The tricky part is translating the JSON feed into a set of “regular” javascript variables. Zoho will automatically name the single variable which contains all of your data using the following convention: zoho{username}view{view number}. Within this variable is another single variable which contains the name of your application itself. Because spaces and special characters aren’t allowed, you’ll probably want to view the raw data to figure out exactly what this variable is named. Go the the “public link” URL for your view and view the HTML source code (right-click and “View Source” or “View Page Source” in IE/Firefox, or available in the “View” menu). The very first value you see in quotes will be your application name. This is an essential component in parsing out your data.

Next, you will need to set up a repeating string of code which will allow you to work with individual records. Here’s how it will look (Please replace the items in {brackets} with your own values):

<script>
for (var i=0; i<zoho{username}view{number}.{applicationName}.length; i++){
//This will repeat the code below once for every unique record in the database

var newArray = zoho{username}view{number}.{applicationName}[i];
//This gives you a simpler array name to work with within each record,
//but it is not an essential step.

var ValueOne = newArray.{column name};
//This assigns the value for a specific column within the current record (i) to a temporary variable.
//Again, this is to simplify the codes you need to write to work with the data, but is not necessary.
//Repeat this step for every column available in your Zoho Creator view if you want to

//Insert some codes to manipulate the data. For example:
if (ValueOne==”Approved”){
document.writeln(ValueTwo);
}
//This sample code will write the data to your Web page provided the current record’s value in this column is equal to “Approved” (Note that javascript is case-sensitive).
//You will want to write your own code to manipulate or display the actual data from your Zoho application.

}
//The steps above will be repeated for every record in your database.

</script>

It’s hard to write the instructions for parsing JSON feeds without having a “real” feed to work with, since all of the variables change with every application (I’d use one of mine, but most of the data I include are very complex, and probably would not help clear things up). If this does not help, please feel free to contact me again, and I will set up some more detailed instructions along with a sample, simplified, JSON feed so you can see how this works in more detail.

Alternatively, you might get some help from understanding both how JSON scripts are built and/or displayed by visiting “The Javascript Reference Series” at http://www.hunlock.com/blogs/Mastering_JSON_(_JavaScript_Object_Notation_).

Let’s say I have server space; how do I go about loading a json feed from zoho, parse it, and display it on a page?

Great information by the way, but to use paypals website to create “buy now” buttons is not so good. Hackers can easy access the code, buypass the “actuall buying of the product” and go straight to the download page (if it`s a downloadble product that is). I have found a great software that disables this. Check this site to have a look…

http://www.profit-ebooks.biz