FrogLearn FrogTags and the HTML widget

[mobrien]

@Graham Quince and community Frog,

In another topic about HTML tables that @Chris.Smith is providing me with a huge amount of hand-holding, he mentioned amending the data contained within my HTML code using a script and JSON format data. It is much simpler than lines and lines of HTML for each row data.

It started me thinking: further to our discussions about using FireBase to contain and access individualised data, could there be an alternative method written directly into the HTML widget, without the need for FireBase?

My thinking for the HTML is as follows, and as mentioned in my other post, please note that my skills are barrel bottom in terms of availability:

1. Call up/define the logged in user's upn, as described in the "Displaying personalised, custom data" post on the Frog Community

2. Define a table

3. Provide all required table cell data in JSON format within the script (see below)

4. Populate the data in the table with the fields that ONLY correspond to those that match the user's upn. This would somehow also require the data in the JSON format to contain and recognise the upn? Upn would obviously not be displayed.

@Chris.Smith included the JSON data as follows. I have amended it to include a reference upn and an alternative use.

        data = [
            { upn: 'FRG_12321', name: 'Student Tom', house: 'Bowman', tutor: 'ACR', MyMaths un: 'Tom', MyMaths pw: 'tree' },
            { upn: 'FRG_34243', name: 'Student Sarah', house: 'Fulford', tutor: 'MOB', MyMaths un: 'Sarah', MyMaths pw: 'flower' }
        ];

The applications for this are enormous, such as passwords as in the data, or sharing student grades.

Hope you can help,

Michael

[Graham Quince]

Hi @mobrien,

That's the goal - but there is a security flaw with using just the HTML widget to contain the data.  I'm not prepared to highlight what that flaw is on an open forum, but it is possible to read all the data stored in an HTML widget.  I've suggested similar approaches in the past to @Chris.Smith, but he's always found ways to identify all the information.

The Firebase method locks the data away behind the UPN.  You have to know the UPN to access just one student's data and would have to know everyone's to get their data individually.

In the future, one development Chris wants to add is Web Services.  This would enable you to have your own database inside FrogLearn and accessible via the HTML widget, but it would not interact with Frog's own databases. (so secure, but can't damage anything else)

[mobrien]

Hi @Graham Quince,

Thank you for the explanation - makes total sense. It's good to know that security is a non-negotiable.

M.