Total newb, please give me some guildlines.

[JinYoo]

Hi everyone,
I'm 17, and I know how to use dreamweaver to make basic HTML websites, and photoshop and stuff. My church youth group recently asked me to make a website for the youthgroup, so i made a basic layout of a website.

I know nothing about cgi,php,mysql etc.
I tried to use MySQL since i heard it was easy to use, so i downloaded mysql-4.1.13a for windows, and i tried accessing the mysql file in the bin folder, but the dos window could just close after one second, so i dont know what to do.
i downloaded some clips of using MySQL php, but with this problem at hand, i can't do anything.
Any suggestions?

for my church website,
1. i was hoping to make a gallery, where users would first see alot of thumbnails and once you click on them, a small java window would pop up with a larger picture and a option of commenting on the picture.
2. a login feature on the homepage, where users can register, and upon approval, login to comment on pictures etc.
3. maybe a forum, but i have no idea, what to do.


ANY HELP would be GREATLY appreciated!!! thank you so very much.

P.S, a church teacher gave me a FTP address to upload to and a subdomain i can use(he said no PHP tho), if that is any help...

My teacher suggested ASP, so here i am.

Also, i did a search on the forum for gallery, and i got a script for one and i copied and pasted to the code section of dreamweaver, but nothing happened, it just appeared as txt when i saw it in the design mode.
help.

[miranda]

Since your teacher mentioned no php and mentioned to use ASP instead, this means the server is most likely Microsoft IIS. Many IIS webhosts don't have MySql installed on the server, so you need to ask if that is available. If not then you will probably need to use MS Access or MS SQL Server as your database. Find out what is available.

For a basic user registration and login system you can use this one (http://www.dataconnective.net/samples/classicasp.asp) that I make freely available to all who want to use it. It uses an Access database which is also included in the downloadable .zip file

ps unless you have IIS running on the machine the file is on, then in Dreamweaver you will only see an icon that says asp for any asp code on the page when you view the page.

[JinYoo]

Hi, I found out microsoft iis is installed as well as mysql.
but he also told me they are gonna restart the server or something so i can't do anything until they do. can you tell me my options and what i should do, thank you.

[Bullschmidt]

For a photo album I like to actually have the regular photo be 4x4, 4x6, or 6x4 and then also have a thumbnail of each photo at 25% or 30%. But of course you could have your own rules and standards.

And showing a photo with it's filename from a field in a database really takes nothing more than code like this (assuming the recordset objRS has already been generated):

<img src="http://www.mysite.com/photos/"<%= objRS("PhotoFilenameNormalSize") %>" border="0">

[Bullschmidt]

And for general ASP info...

Web Database Concept
http://www.bullschmidt.com/concept.asp

This is something I put together about ASP that hopefully might help somehow.

You and others can have access to a database hosted on the Web from any location that has a browser with an Internet connection.

The Web database concept makes sense if you and your people want to do work in various locations in or outside the office and still be "plugged" in.

For example you could have employees enter timesheets or have sales reps log their contacts. Or perhaps you'd like customers to be able to check the status of their orders online without having to call the company.

If you want a Web database, typically what would happen is that a database such as Access or MySQL (basically just consisting of tables) would be put on the Web.

Then "dynamic" Web pages (such as classic ASP pages which include VBScript, HTML, and/or JavaScript) would be created acting like the old desktop database's queries, forms, and reports to access the database - all hosted on a Web Server.

Dynamic Web pages are similar in many ways to regular HTML pages. But they are "live" because the user can read from and write to information in the database. An example where you can login and add, edit, or view fictional customers and invoices is at http://www.bullschmidt.com/login.asp

Not all Web hosts will handle dynamic Web pages but many do. The Web hosts that can handle ASP pages usually have a Windows 2000 or Windows 2003 operating system running an IIS Web server.

Here are a few good ASP sites:
o ASP101 Samples - http://www.asp101.com/samples
o W3Schools ASP Tutorial - http://www.w3schools.com/asp
o Microsoft VBScript Language Reference - http://msdn.microsoft.com/scripting/default.htm?/scripting/VBScript/doc/vbscripttoc.htm

And the following newsgroup is good:
microsoft.public.inetserver.asp.general

Or for a "quick and dirty" generic ASP open source solution to putting databases on the Web (often works well for the admin area of a Web site which doesn't need to look too unique) that just requires setting up a configuration page for each table or query and uploading the database to the Web as long as there is an autonumber field in each table (and you'll probably also separately want to create login capabilities), perhaps try something like this:
GenericDB by Eli Robillard
http://www.genericdb.com and then click on the Tips link to see an example