Rental Application is a Firefox extension that allows you to create/save/edit/print rental apps using simple-storage offline on your own computer.
- To run create a blank file named rentapstart.html (doesn't matter where you put it) and double-click: Firefox will open the Rental Application instead. I recommend bookmarking the location of rentapstart.html. In order to bookmark it, you first have to see it in Firefox which you can do by just hitting the Back key on Firefox after rentap first loads. Hit the back key more than once if necessary, and eventually you'll see the blank page rentapstart.html that you created.
- Form Controls The buttons for saving, editing, etc, are all off to the right. This form is designed for use in a maximized window on a wide-screen of at least 1360 pixels. If used in a smaller window, just scroll to the right to see the buttons. The scroll bar for moving left/right is on the bottom of your Firefox window.
- Header By default, rentap loads with instructions to enter a rental address, city, state, and title for the rental application. Just highlight enter rental address and start typing in the new information. Hit tab to move on to the next line. After entering the new header, click Save Header. You can save another header just by editing the current one and clicking Save Header again. You can have as many headers as you need and cycle through them with the Next Header button. You can delete any header by clicking Del Header. Starting with version 0.8 header information is stored with each application so when brought back up on a future date, the application will look the same as when first entered even if the header had been deleted in the meantime.
- row/Jump Each application is saved in it's own row in a file located wherever Firefox puts simple-storage files (which are kind of like cookies). If you have printed an application and written the row down, you will be able to retrieve that application anytime by entering the row and clicking Jump. You can also retrieve applications with the Search button.
- Save and Save Edit These buttons do what you would expect. There is no Del button for applications, but you can click Clear Form (located at bottom right) and Save Edit, saving a blank application on that row. You can then enter new application information and click Save Edit again. Rows can't be deleted so that the row for an application never changes, making it easier to retrieve applications in the future, assuming you didn't overwrite them with another application. Clear Form doesn't automatically delete an application: that only happens if you click Save Edit next. So, when entering a stack of applications, feel free to use the Clear Form button. Just make sure after entering the next application, you click Save and not Save Edit. Every time Save is clicked, a new row is created.
- Search/Next/Previous The Search button is not very powerful. You can only search on the Full Name. You don't have to type in the whole name, but you do have to type it in from the beginning, using capital letters as needed. So, to find Colin Keenan, Col works, but not col. In a future release, I plan to allow something like just entering C and click Next until you get to Colin Keenan if that wasn't the first application starting with C. The Prev and Next buttons cycle through the applications starting over when you get to the end.
- Print As with any web page, print with either ctrl-p or File->Print... Set the Range to Current Page, and in the Page Setup tab set the Paper Orientation to Landscape. For best printing results, also set the headers and footers all to blank in the Options tab. Headers and footers print information about the page you are printing beyond what you see on the screen, and aren't useful in this situation. The form controls off to the right are invisible when printed, and wouldn't fit on the page anyway.
- CSV and SQL Originally, I planned to store the applications in an SQLite database named rentap.sqlite which could be placed wherever you wanted and accessed from any SQLite capable application, such as SQLite Manager available as an add-on to Firefox. I haven't figured out how to interact directly with SQLite databases from my add-on yet. However, I've included some boxes and buttons to help in storing applications in a file called rentap.sqlite. I recommend installing the SQLite Manager add-on and setting it to open in a tab instead of a separate window. You can set it to open from a tab in the preferences which you get to from Tools->Add-ons. With SQLite Manager open in one tab, and rentap open in the next tab, you can easily move information between the two.
- Create rentap.sqlite with a single table named rentap which you can do in the Execute SQL tab of SQLite Manager by copying and pasting the following SQL statement: CREATE TABLE rentap (fullname text primary key, ssnumber text, birthdate text, maritalstatus text, email text, stateid text, phone1 text, phone2 text, currentaddress text, previousaddresses text, occupants text, pets text, income text, employment text, evictions text, felonies text, authdate text, guestdate text,rentdate text,rentaladdress text,rentalcitystzip text,rtitle text)
With rentap.sqlite created and open in SQLite Manager, you can add applications to it by clicking Generate SQL and Copy SQL in rentap, then pasting that into Execute SQL tab of SQLite Manger. Then you can retrieve and view those records in this rentap add-on by getting the CSV data and pasting it into the provided box and clicking Import CSV.
- To get CSV data from SQLite Manager, click on the Execute SQL tab and find the data you want using something like: SELECT * FROM rentap where fullname like 'Colin%' then click Run SQL. When you find just one row of data, you can see the CSV data by clicking Actions->View CSV. Copy and paste into the rentap form and click Import CSV to see it. It's not necessary to use SQLite Manager, but you can if you want better control of the data, than what this form provides.
No restart required!
Product's homepage
Requirements:
· Mozilla Firefox
What's New in This Release: [ read full changelog ]
· Taken some small steps to making this extension usable by people speaking other languages than English.
· Added a link to an online blank application that can be translated by Google Translate. Made a lot of changes to the html to make it compatable with Google Translate. The online application is just for printing in other languages, not for entering applications. The online application also includes a link to Instructions by Example online that can also be translated by Google Translate and printed out.
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