Form Filler

This essay is about a suggested student project in Java programming. This essay gives a rough overview of how it might work. It does not describe an actual complete program. I have no source, object, specifications, file layouts or anything else useful to implementing this project. Everything I have to say to help you with this project is written below. I am not prepared to help you implement it; I have too many other projects of my own.

I do contract work for a living, which could include writing a program such as this. However, I don’t do people’s homework for them. That just robs them of an education.

You have my full permission to implement this project any way you please.

This is designed as an plug-in to a browser such as Netscape. The plug-in looks at a form, usually one containing name, address etc. and fills it in reasonably intelligently from a set of canned fields configured into the browser. It would have heuristic logic to decide which data goes in which fields. Test it out at various shopping cart sites and various sites that don’t take email, where they want you to fill in a form to register a complaint. Even if you get it 80% right, you still save the user time typing.

Design a standard set of field names. Give your standard a fancy acronym. Bug websites who don’t follow it, and send them a copy, explaining the advantages of standard field naming, and giving plenty of examples. Extend for other languages besides English. Make sure you can handle telephone numbers and addresses outside the USA. There is a now a bloated commercial product that does this called Gator.

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