Web page designers are creative by nature. Most either cannot or do not want to write Internet scripts. Web page designers like to produce the graphics and corporate design of the site. The trouble is that web pages on there own do nothing but display information such as text, graphics and sound. OK! They can look great and will provide your telephone and email contact information!!
But, CGI scripts can offer you so much more.
When a CGI script is required this task falls to specialist Internet programmers. A CGI server script is simply a software program that has been written to take user input from your web page and perform an action on it.
For example when you complete at a simple “email contact form” on a web site the information is then sent to a CGI script (program). The script then decides what to do with the information that has just been sent to it. In this case it sends out an email. The source code for the script resembles any other program that you may have on your computer.
CGI scripts are simply programs, they can be written to do just about anything.
It is whatever the script is written to do.
Once the script has done its job the result is then sent back to the users computer and displayed in web page format so that we humans can understand it. This is done either by embeding the web page in the scripts program code or using a "templated" web page.
Most new companies to the Internet are only concerned with displaying an online brochure that looks good and is well designed. At best it may include a simple email response form.
It is only when you start asking the question. CAN I?
That you need to consider CGI scripts.
The most popular examples of CGI scripts are "shopping baskets" and "Content management control" (CMS) web sites.
You can purchase many CGI scripts of the shelf at very reasonable prices. These scripts have already been written by an Internet programmer.
See "Off the Shelf Scripts".
Although, It is our experience that every customer has individual requirements so they may just need tweeking a little to suite your needs. You may also still want your web designer to format the display results to your taste or we can do that for you.
If you cannot find an "Off the Shelf Script" and wish to have your own custom script written then talk to us. Over the years we have built up an extensive library of source code that now enables us to provide most CGI scripting requirements at very reasonable prices. We may already have something near to what you are looking for? Be savy. There is no harm in getting a quote.
Our standard rate for custom CGI scripting is only £200 per day.