AutoMinder is a vehicle maintenance tracking program written using PHP, AJAX, JavaScript, and MySQL. It is designed to manage a small fleet of vehicles and to track repair costs, scheduled maintenance, and other tasks related to vehicle care.
It was designed as a project to learn PHP and MySQL. In the middle of the project, AJAX functionality was added to enhance the user experience. By adding AJAX calls, the entire page did not have to be refreshed to display more data. The AJAX call performs a MySQL query that gets the needed data and displays the result in a way that is less intrusive to the user than a page refresh.
Notable Features
- AJAX calls are used to retrieve data in the background without a page refresh for a better user experience
- Using CSS, fields are displayed or hidden depending on how the page is viewed (on a screen or printed)
- Input fields in the Admin area are hidden until the option is clicked. The fields are then displayed, allowing the user to change the value. Once the value is changed and the focus moves off that field, the text label is changed (including the font color, background color, and style) and the input field is hidden again
- When entering a service ticket, the mileage is required. If the mileage is not entered, an error message appears to hide the button to add the ticket and the mileage field background is changed to red to indicate the error
- If entering multiple tasks, the previous mileage can be filled in the mileage input field by clicking on the downward pointing arrow next to the label
