How to Build Basic "To-Do" list style Website - php

I am trying to create a website that will allow me to list all of the different types of beers I have tried including name, type, location, and brief tasting notes. I have a basic login created and believe that I will have to store the information about the beer in a database as well (with a cell for each of the elements). I was wondering a) if this is how people would suggest going about doing this and b) if anyone knows of good tutorials on how to set this up. I plan on using mySQL and PHP for the database and jQuery for the visual side of things. I am relatively new at this, so I am having trouble figuring out what exactly to Google to find what I am looking for.
I plan on going about it similar to a to-do list (only each element would have multiple attributes — name, type, etc.). Any help/suggestions/direction would be awesome! Thanks!

First off you need to decide on the features you want to implement, and then work out which to do first.
For example,
you need a database, which has a table for your beer info. (but do you need another one for people to have a user account too?)
you need to create a set of functions that you can access from the web site.
list beers
add beer
etc.
How do you want the front end to work?
How do you want the front end to look?
Once you know exactly what you want to do, it's much easier to break down the tasks into jobs you need the application to do.
I'd also suggest you look at Ruby on Rails (especially + the Hobo addon) to get you up and running faster (instead of PHP) - if you are set on PHP, have a look at CakePHP or another similar framework, so that you don't end up re-inventing the wheel.
Update:
Once you get started, further more detailed problems will be faced, many you can get a quick answer from google or the documentation for the language / database etc. If something is extra tricky, post another question on StackOverflow.
As it is your question is too general for a more specific answer, but if you need any additional info, just yell.

Related

Making MySQL databases readable for non-developers

This summer, I will be designing an e-commerce website and have chosen MySQL to organize the incredible amounts of data I will be receiving. The people I am designing for are great at making their products...but have absolutely no development or coding experience.
I have three months to make the site, and I don't begin until June. In the end, they would like an easy, readable, and preferably fasionable way to present this data. They also want to be able to manipulate it (sort by date, item, customer, etc.). They don't care if it's an Excel file, a secure webpage, or anything like that.
I know the basics of MySQL, but I am looking for ways to PRESENT the data in a way that is easy and accessible. I love to teach myself and do my own research, so my question is...what topics of interest in MySQL should I read into to learn how to present this data?
Choose any e-commerce CMS like Magento or oscommerce or opencart. All these e-commerce solutions has many in-built reports that would be needed by the business people..
And there are much more options available than normal reporting and these solutions covers most of the business objectives and business models , so whenever the business evolves it will be easier to update the website with little effort..
For a list of e-commerce solutions and comparisons, visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_shopping_cart_software
If you have a decent grasp of JavaScript and programming web via PHP or Java I would recommend Dojo DataGrid. It is fairly simple to implement if you use the basic grid and looks and performs great.
Dont use MYSQL - Oracle is going to kill it - it is in their plans - use MariaDB - (drop in replacement for MySQL)
look into using php/mysql together with some fancy jquery stuff like dataTables to present your data. A great article/tutorial on just how to do this can be found here ->
You should get away with knowing the basics of mysql to rig something like that up to work...
If there are a lot of numeric parameters and enum type stuff, try using jquery ui to make it look nice with some sliders and fancy checkboxes etc.
I've got a prototype of something I'm working on (slowly...) that utilizes all of the above if you want to see. here it is! It's for a shopping cart but you get the drift
Good Luck!
Assuming you are building the system yourself (and don't have an off-the-shelf option)...
· If they need lots of flexibility in manipulating the data, I'd run a cron job that exports reports as CSV files for them to open in Excel.
· If there are limited views that they are interested in, I'd run the report as a php script that renders an html table, and make it sortable using a jQuery widget.

Creating online web interface to store messages in dB and make available to an end user, use PHP / MYSQL?

I've been approached about writing a system for a client. They currently want something to replace the email approach that is currently being used.
The system is fairly simple on the surface. There is my client, who is the customer, and his clients.
His clients need to be able to create new messages which are then saved in a repository so to speak. They can also edit and delete their messages.
My client should be able to view all the messages for him (so he can process them so to speak) and essentially be able to view them, filter them through advanced filters / search criteria, through a smart looking web front-end.
My main experience in this kind of thing is using PHP/MYSQL/Oracle. I can see that it is quite easy to create a system for this using these technologies. One dB, which will have aroound 20,000 records created per year say. Allow access to my client to view, advanced filtering and searching, and to his clients to create, edit and delete.
I'm just wondering if I'm missing anything obvious here, in terms of an off-the-shelf solution? Or should I be considering some other technologies (I pretty much can use anything I have to).
Many thanks,
There are a multitude of options. I don't think any of them is better than the others for your application. I'd go with what you already know, or what you can hire people easily to create/maintain.

how to add comments to website

In an effort to give a website im working on more functionality, im wanting the ability for readers to post comments/thoughts to the stories they read.
any ideas the best way to go about this?
ive tried Google but the minute i add the word "comments " + html or php etc (assuming i can do it in these languages) then google just gives me methods to commenting on code....
Any ideas, tips, tutorials etc ill gladly jump on.
Thanks in advance
-somdow
Well the most popular embeddable comment system is probably Disqus. Besides that you will have to look if there are plugins for your framework of choice - or just roll your own (a comment system is basically just like any other database backed PHP application - and there are many ways to implement these).
Why not just look at how popular content management systems have implemented comments? (For instance, take a look at how Drupal and Wordpress do it.) The manner in which you build a comment system will depend on your needs and the limitations imposed by the structure of the system you're trying to integrate it with.
You should work out your database schema first. I'm assuming you're writing all of this from from scratch. You haven't given a lot of details.
It will be easier if you put your comments in a separate table. Make sure you have some basic protections against bots(captcha, etc.)
Sort the results by the timestamp.
comments_table
Id
UserId
UserDisplayName
ArticleId
Comment
PostTime
Disqus is nice, I must say. If you want code that you want to copy/paste, Google Friend Connect is a different route you can take... Almost everyone has a google account and it only takes a few minutes to set up. They also have some sweet other widgets you might want to try out like rating, etc.
http://google.com/friendconnect
If you really want to customize it just how you want it, I would create your own commenting system with a MYSQL database to store all your data. You could even use some nice jQuery animations when they write / delete a comment. (I just did something simular to that and it's really nice).
Whatever works best for you -- roll with it!
Good luck,
Coulton

Is there a simple way to "roll your own forms" for mysql in php, for example in jquery?

I've been googling around for a really simple way of making what is, in effect, nothing more than an enhanced phpMyAdmin.
In a mysql database, I have:
Name, address, phone, website etc, plus 2 or 3 custom fields. This data is pulled out to make a website.
All I want is to be able to make a freeform form, a bit like Access, but for the web, and the only thing I want to do over and above normal field editing would be to have a list of when I contact them, what was said, and perhaps a reminder when the next action is due. It also needs to implement some basic permissions so that different users can access different subsets of the data.
I've looked at so many CRMs my mind is boggling, and they all do WAY more than I need. I don't have leads or accounts, all I have is the need to make sure than when I update the person's details, and for that data to be in the same DB as my site is generate from.
I'm happy to learn if I can get pointed in the right direction, and I have a feeling that something like what I want might lie in the direction of jquery. It's just that there's so much good jquery stuff about, I can't see the wood for the trees!
Thanks.
If phpMyAdmin doesn't quite do it for you, it sounds like you just want a simple little web application.
jQuery is probably barking up the wrong tree. It's just a javascript library. While you could certainly use it to spiff up your little application, it's not going to get you the core functionality you need.
I would just dig in and write a little PHP script that does exactly what you want. Even if you're not very experienced, this would be a great learning project.
There are lots of tools which will generate forms including Phpeanuts, phpFormGen, Delphi for PHP, PfP Studio, FormFields, phpMyEdit (and many more).
I've not looked at Radria for some time - previously, it was more of a CMS/page layout/mashup thing rather than a form generator though.
C.
As has been said, you need to build a web interface.
One simple thing you can use is something like Django's admin panel or Ruby on Rails' script/generate scaffold functionality. If you can run Rails or Django, try those.
If you are tied into PHP, consider using one of the PHP frameworks. I'm no expert on them - some of my PHP-using friends have good stuff to say about Symfony (the alternatives: Cake, CodeIgniter, Zend). A bit of random Googling tells me that Symfony has an admin generator that may be quite like that of Django.
As has been said, jQuery won't do what you need, although you can use it.

app that auto-generates CRUD UI for database table

I have a MySQL database that has a few very simple tables.
I would like to find an app (implemented in Perl, Python or PHP) that will do the following:
Point the app to a database table, and it automatically retrieves the table's schema from the database.
It then generates an HTML view of the table's data. The data is displayed as a grid, with all fields being user-editable. If there are a lot of rows, then it automatically provides pagination.
Bonus points for allowing the user to click a column heading, which would then sort the data by that column.
Bonus points for allowing the data to be filtered by a "where" clause.
I have already looked at a few packages (phpMyAdmin, webmysql), but they do not seem to provide the editable table view. They seem more oriented towards database administrators. What I need is something that's more oriented towards someone who wants to view, enter and modify data.
Use phpGrid. This is all you need.
$dg = new C_DataGrid(“SELECT * FROM orders”, “orderNumber”, “orders”);
$dg -> display();
Outcome:
See if Java NakedObejcts is what you want. http://www.nakedobjects.org
If you can use groovy then Grails can get you jump started. It will build an ORM of your entire DB, build views and your basic CRUD is all built in.
If you have a real aversion to anything thats Java-based then perl's Catalyst can help build all your mappings but might not get you the whole 9 yards. You will need to write some of your basic CRUD, which is easy and can be accomplished by simple following the Catalyst tutorial.
Thanks for the responses, but none of those exactly fit the bill, so I decided to implement it myself.
The result is a new open source project called DWI, which stands for Database Web Interface. It took me about 3 days to get it working, and I did it in about 600 lines of PHP and javascript.
If you want to check it out, it's located at http://code.google.com/p/dwi.
Use CakeApp.com, it does exactly what you want!
CakeApp.com is a rapid development online tool. It's easy to use, no
other software than your browser is needed. Benefit from ER-Diagrams
of others and share your visions too.

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