# How can I program this web tool?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-program-this-web-tool/383400
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [December 8, 2006, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-program-this-web-tool/383400 "2006-12-08T21:26:30Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)
#### Post date: [December 8, 2006, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-program-this-web-tool/383400/1 "2006-12-08T21:26:30Z")
I play online games (at the moment, City of Heroes). Those games have ‘Friends’ lists, but they’re not very verbose; at best they tell you the person’s name.
I want to make a web-based tool, so I can ALT-Tab over to that screen and plug in a player’s name, make a few notes, record what day I saw them, what kind of character he was playing, and maybe click on a few buttons like “do not team with again” or whatever. It should save the data somehow, so I can look up a player again later.
What tools should I use to make such a thing? It needn’t reside on the Internet; it could just be for my own personal use.
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### Author:  [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)
#### Post date: [December 8, 2006, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-program-this-web-tool/383400/2 "2006-12-08T21:30:13Z")
I’d use Access if you have it, or Excel if you’re more comfortable with that. Access is better for making reports from text-based stuff.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2006, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-program-this-web-tool/383400/3 "2006-12-09T00:48:03Z")
I’m not clear on why you ask for a “web tool”… What are you looking to do that couldn’t be accomplished just by editing a text file in Notepad?
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### Author:  [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2006, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-program-this-web-tool/383400/4 "2006-12-09T01:14:27Z")
I was thinking web tool, because it could do databasey stuff like sort/filter data, have little radio buttons and check boxes and sliders and so forth, and this tool could be made available to other people who play the same game — or it could be made into a public ‘Rate This Player!’ tool, whereas a Notepad file can’t. A web tool could also more easily do stuff like run searches for names that have already been classified.