JPD,
I started a new thread,to avoid confusion.

<<<I have this worked out (I think) in my head, but I need to be sure of what you need.
This is what I envision:
When a user (customer) does a search, the results are displayed in a form, with a text box to fill in the quantity for each item desired. He/she clicks a button and the key values for the items, along with the quantities, are saved to a file which is associated with the user.>>>

Thanks very much for your offer of help on this. The following configuration would suit me best - it's not exactly how you envisaged it:

My merchandise would be displayed in a table, one record per row. Each row of the table displays eight fields:
ItemID, author, publisher, year, description, condition, price, and a final field with a "buy me" clickable link.

Any shopper (no need for him/her to log in) who wants to, can search the database, and bring up a short-list of items in a search-results table. Alongside every record in the database is a clickable "buy me" (gif or words). When a by-me link is clicked, it appends a copy of that particular merchandise record to a separate, temporary, delimited data file (the cart). Each time the user clicks on another 'buy me' button, another merchandise record is appended to the cart file. at any time, the shopper can click on a "view cart" button at the top or bottom of the mercandise-viewing page. On clicking this, he is taken to a table displaying the contents of the cart so far;- i.e., the list of the proposed purchases. Under the price column of this cart table, there's a separate textbox, containing the total of all the prices of the proposed purchases in the cart. The rows in the cart table should ideally have "delete me" buttons beside each item, in case the shopper has accidentally added an incorrect item, or too many instances of an item. The cart table should not be otherwise editable by the shopper.

When the customer is ready to place the order, he fills in his e-mail address (for identification purposes)in a text box just below the cart list and clicks a button which sends data on the cart page to me, by sendmail.

On doing that, he is taken to another URL: my "credit card details entry form" located on a secure server. (He fills that form and submits it, and that's the end of the purchase-procedure.)

I hope that explains it clearly enough - but if you have any questions, please fire away. I'll be listening.

Thanks again, Carol, for any input you can offer on this one. It may call for an extra
pot of Earl Grey.

Alan



[This message has been edited by Alan33 (edited May 06, 2000).]

[This message has been edited by Alan33 (edited May 06, 2000).]