Advice/help needed re Chrono vs Fabrik

Hi Devs,

I'm in need of some help.


Attached is a screenshot of a Fabrik form. It is for submitting a classified ad to a printed newsletter (NOT an online one therefore an actal clasified ads component is not the solution -I think).

The form is based on two groups: the users data and the repeatable classified ad data. (ie if you had several cars to sell at the same time)

To pay for the classifieds I was intending to use the paypal plugin of which I've read about
http://fabrikar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13266
but can't find.


So instead I want to use the fabric_id (primary key) to double as code/coupon. This code/coupon would be manually entered by the user into virtuemart as a completely separate process for payment. Not ideal but I'll settle for ANYTHING and improve on it over time.

However the fabric id is not viewable in a form (this is absolutely extraordinary yet true and I think they were a bit rude to the previous person who asked about it. So I certainly am not going to post there.) There is a suggestion to somehow hard code it into a template, but I've gone through the templates and it feels like the wrong solution to me.

They recommending turning the id to field which is useless since it does not display on the form anyway, because fabrik assumes that this new id will be input by the user (even when set as read only.)

http://fabrikar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13755

Note in the image I attached the input box for the id is greyed out indicating read only but the id is not displayed.



So I can't seem to get a code/coupon. I have tried using an auto-increment code/coupon that is not the primary field but that does not seem to be possible either.

So instead I'm looking at chronoforms...... It looks daunting.

My question is how long will it take me to master? I was able to learn how to build the fabrik system in a few hours. I have basic mysql and php skills but no javascript so I'm worried about the repeatable fields for multiple ad input. ( as seen at the bottom of the attached form picture.)

The advantagwe of chronoforms is that I would not need a coupon/code to input into virtuemart since chronoforms appears to have paypal as an option.

My other alternative might be to create some customer user fields in virtuemart to input the classified data and simply drop the multiple ad input option.

so in order of preference

Paypal plugin for Fabrik

or

Method of displaying autoincremented field in Fabrik form (prior to submission) to be manually entered into virtuemart.

or

Method of creating repeatable fields in chronoforms

or

method for creating classified ads input in virtuemart using custom fields

what say ye? Any advice would be appreciated.

I can upload a copy to my public test server if anyone wants to 'ave a look