[Archived] Web Development help

[Hughesy]

Ok basically just need pointing in the right direction for several web development type stuff....so I.T techys/ Glenn etc - help me.

I want to build a website, however I refuse to pay to get the work done as I know im capable of doing it myself with some research.

My skills are SQL, PL/SQL and I use SQL developer for Oracle daily. I also have a good knowledge of Visual basic. I have also been involved in some data warehousing type stuff too (on oracle).

I want to build a website similar to Auto-Trader - a website that holds individual account details, which has log-ins etc and also which can present data/ pics etc to the customer.

Now to build this type of site what do I need? Is the log-in stuff done via PHP coding? Or is there something else?

What software should I be using? Does anyone have any similar style websites they are willing to share me a template for?

Then what skills do I need to build the front end? Java? CSS?

Finally if I want to pull back certain data based on search functions, what should I be using?

Any help appreciated then I can start to research and get the knowledge needed.

[thebigguy]

Firstly I would suggest you do with php and Sql Database for login and query the database for the information.

But it will not be as easy as that because you will need to think about coding to give you extra security since you are handling customers information.

Also you will need CSS style knowledge for the style of the site.

All the information is gathered by the php page code and chucks a output with correct information and styled for your site.

If I remember rightly look for phpacademy on youtube and there should be some videos for you to watch. They will teach you to do some basics and that is it. You have to use your intelligence to put it all together into a proper working site

Basic connect to a database. These change on every database

<?PHP

$user_name = "root";

$password = "rovers";

$database = "Database name";

$server = "127.0.0.1";

mysql_connect($server, $user_name, $password);

?>

Very lastly you will need to either input the data manually into the database or create another webpage to do this but also making it secure.

[Hughesy]

So am I best to create the background database tables before the webpage?

What software am I best using? Dreamweaver or something else?

[Biddy]

If you are doing this seriously, you really need to think about what data you need and want to keep in your database. Then design the database around that getting all the table relationships sorted with your primary keys.

Once you have a solid structure in place, the web design is "just the fancy graphics on top" which can be built on using most commercial packages liek dreamweaver as you say, or my favourite, notepad!

I'm guessing you can use wordpress as well (which is open source) to do pretty much anything with plugins for shop fronts, blogs etc. I'm surprised Glenn hasn't been on here selling the virtues of it tbh

It's a big mistake designing a pretty front end without knowing where the data is going or coming from. You soon end up with on massive table that makes database look ups get gradually slower and slower the more data you put in there. At that point you might as well have used and excel spreadsheet.

In terms of coding, php is very popular, this MB is all coded in php and there are LOADS of free tips and information lurking in google. I personally like Perl but thats just because you can write one liners that make no sense whatsoever to other people

You also need to be wary of Data Protection and what information you keep for how long and securing that information.

Have fun and good luck.

[thebigguy]

I would say create them both(database and webpage) at the same time. Start with login php script and database for it as it is very easy and will get you into the swing of things very easy.

For Login Database

Used for usernames and password then another column to assign privileges EG 0= Nothing, 1=user, 2=power user, 3=full acess.

Reason for doing both is so you don't make database to complex and then panic while building php side.

Programs for us if you do not have access to a web host at the moment

XAMPP - basically everything you need(sql/php/ftp/ssl/etc). Just follow read me and tutorials on how to set it up and change passwords.

ConText - This is a lot better than notepad because characters change colours so can easily follow if a code has a start and finish

Tutorials

Phpacademy(youtube) - http://www.youtube.com/user/phpacademy

Phpacademy (main Site) - http://phpacademy.org/

I used to use notepad before I came across context

[Biddy]

Ah, I was probably not that clear. I wasn't saying create the database first but design it. Understand what data is needed and how and when it is to be accessed. The flow of the web site will be much easier.

I was also taught to actually draw the flow of an application (this case the website) out on paper to get an idea again of how it hangs together. Kind of like file story boarding.

Granted that goes out the window when you just start hacking away like I usually do. But then you hit problems down the line when you realise a field should have been EPOCH instead of DATE or you needed 15 extra chars in a field. Or more regularly in my case, you need to add three more fields for things you missed that you needed.

6 of one and half a dozen of the other. But of course, without a data source and dummy values, you got nothing to test against!

[Hughesy]

If you are doing this seriously, you really need to think about what data you need and want to keep in your database. Then design the database around that getting all the table relationships sorted with your primary keys.

It's a big mistake designing a pretty front end without knowing where the data is going or coming from. You soon end up with on massive table that makes database look ups get gradually slower and slower the more data you put in there. At that point you might as well have used and excel spreadsheet.

You also need to be wary of Data Protection and what information you keep for how long and securing that information.

Ah, I was probably not that clear. I wasn't saying create the database first but design it. Understand what data is needed and how and when it is to be accessed. The flow of the web site will be much easier.

I was also taught to actually draw the flow of an application (this case the website) out on paper to get an idea again of how it hangs together. Kind of like file story boarding.

Thanks for the responses guys - il check out the tutorials and bits of software.

Data protection shouldnt be an issue - I work with the data protection act & several other sharing rules etc so know what I should/ shouldnt keep.

So your saying to basically design the workflow of where and when data is pulled from? I do alot of that sort of stuff now in my job, so that should be easy enough.

What about images etc, are these all stored in my database? Also when your saying it gets difficult when its querying a massive database which in turn slows down run times, should I therefore have as many tables as possible/ manageable?

[Biddy]

What about images etc, are these all stored in my database?

Depends what you want to do with them or how you are indexing. It's up to you, they can be just stored on the filesystem and referenced in html. If you want to keep track of all pictures and they are meaningful to the data then perhaps store them in the database.

Also when your saying it gets difficult when its querying a massive database which in turn slows down run times, should I therefore have as many tables as possible/ manageable?

I didn't say a massive database, I said a massive table. Basically if you have all your data in one table it will become unmanageable and searches on that table will become slower. If there is any duplicated data in records then this should perhaps be off-set to another lookup table.

for example, you probably don't want one table that has:-

last name, first name, product bought, product description, price

as that would be duplicating information in the database if 2 or more people had the same product.

you would want 2 tables ie

user table

primary key (account_id), surname, first_name, product_id

product table

primary key (product_id), product_description, price

Then you can join the tables in SQL. It just means that if you were only bringing back user information, you wouldn't have to scan information you don't want and you don't have to store duplicated information. Likewise, you can scan only product information and you can easily link the 2 together if you want to link a user to a product.

Database design is all about limiting the duplication to save on table scans and storage requirements.

[thebigguy]

Depends what you want to do with them or how you are indexing. It's up to you, they can be just stored on the filesystem and referenced in html. If you want to keep track of all pictures and they are meaningful to the data then perhaps store them in the database.

DO NOT do this. PHP is very powerfull and you can put your design within the phpcoding you just have to swap between php tags"as my first quote above" within coding to html "<html><Body>" . This includes links to images that will be displayed which can be set up within a CSS style sheet if you really wanted to.

If you utilise CSS style sheets this will mean you will have 1 place to change colours/images/etc instead of going through every pages to change this.

When i say images i mean company logo's or even a photo of your building that you want into your website style.

Other images will be handled differently.

Main this is if the page has php code then it should be named as index.php not as index.html.

If you need a example of this tell me and i will send you a quick example but will be very basic.

[Hughesy]

And all the above is free/legal without having to pay for expensive software or running dodgy cracks on your PC.

From your first questions, though, I'm a bit worried if you're biting off more than you can chew. Have you any experience in web development? Building a site "like Auto Trader" is no simple task. I'll do it for you for a cut price of £20k. Let me know.

1st off thanks for the list

2nd - iv built front end, i.e. designed pages with images etc. I work with data/ databases and use SQL etc on a daily basis to manipulate data and create connections between tables and warehouses etc....so im confident I can understand most of it with abit of research.

As for your £20k - no thanks! lol

[Hughesy]

So are you 3 guys all web developers then?

Iv got 2 websites I want to build....1 similar to Auto-trader & 1 similar to topcashback, which has a user log in & links to websites.....are they the same type of website that I need to build or not?