Dynamic Website

[robocop]

Hey there all you smart guys and girls.....

I recently spoke w/ a client who wanted me to develop a website for him that could be updated by using a form off somewhere on the internet. basically, if he wanted to add a new page, upload an image, change something....whatever, he could do it with a form. What technology would this involve? I am NOT a programmer....but im willing to learn what i have to.....what would be the best approach for this? i know little to nothing about databases...but i want to learn....badly....any advice?

kc:confused:

[webmarkart]

You'll definitely need a server side language to communicate to and from a database (ASP or PHP) along with plain HTML (probably a good idea to learn JavaScript and CSS while your at it). MS Access is the most basic type of database for a small company. My SQL is another database type one level more advanced.

[robocop]

so how would i go about using access to create a website that can be updated by any idiot who doesnt know the least about webdesign? are there any tutorials out there?

thanks...

kc

[webmarkart]

I dont know of any sites that are going to walk you through the whole process of setting up an admin system and it is too complicated to try to explain through the forums. You cannot have a dynamicaly generated website that allows you to do what you are looking for without a server side language (either asp or php) and some sort of database. CSS and JavaScript are important but not required. I'm out numbered in the forum as to which server side language to use, but its what you feel comfortable with. I learned ASP two years ago so thats my suggestion because its fairly easy to learn but if i had learned PHP two years ago instead I'm sure I'd feel differently. Do a little research about both and make a decision. Others on the forum will tell you to use PHP I'm sure, but use what YOU like, not me or any one else. I use MS Access for much the same reasons so look into that and My SQL and make a personal decision.

The best I can tell you are to study each language and the overall task at hand will become more clear.

Here are some links to get you started...

ASP:
http://www.w3schools.com/asp/default.asp
http://www.learnasp.com/learn/newbie.asp
http://www.devasp.com

Access:
http://mis.bus.sfu.ca/tutorials/MSAccess/tutorials.html
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~thicks/AccessDatabase/CreateAccessDatabase/CreateDatabase.html

CSS:
http://www.htmlhelp.com/reference/css
http://www.wsabstract.com/dhtmltuto...reference.shtml

java script:
http://www.cgiscript.net/site_javascripts.htm
http://javascript.internet.com
http://www.gatescript.com
http://www.javascriptkit.com

others will post links for PHP, I hope that helps a little....

[Mhtml]

I have been thinking of doing exactly that, I'm still not sure if I will as there are so many things envolved.

But first you need to decide if it is going to be mostly database driven.

I am developing a file management script but it is still a fair way off. I suggest www.hotscripts.com/asp look in scripts and components and then in file manipulation I think it is..

You should find some good stuff.

[dominicall]

Hi robocop

I'll echo pretty much what webmarket said... have a look at both ASP and PHP and make up your mind from there. My background is VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) so I chose the ASP route and VBscript (used in ASP) is pretty easy to learn.

If you choose the ASP route a great book to start with is Wrox 'Beginning Active Server Pages 3' - it's a great starters manual.

And of course, keep using this site - it's superb.

On the database side, if you do choose ASP, use SQL Server if you can rather than Access. Access is pretty limited unless visitor/user numbers are low - as soon as the user numbers start to grow the site will simply fall over. If you go the PHP route then MySQL is the database to use.

You'll find that once you start along the dynamic site route that you won't want to go back to doing straight HTML - but be prepared for a steep learning curve and a lot of code - depending how big your site is.

I've been developing a site so I can run my own web based business for the last 6 months - programming in the evening whilst doing a full time day job. So far I think I've written about 25,000 lines of HTML/ASP/SQL/Javascript/CSS - and that's just the back end admin system.

But like I said, it will be worth it. I promise.

You'll also find that if you're being paid by clients to develop sites you'll make more from developing feature rich web based applications that just doing the front end brochureware.

Hope this helps.

Dominic :thumbsup:

ps. apologies for the 'feature rich web based applications' comment - almost sound like a consultant that doesn't know what he's talking about - LOL

[webmarkart]

FYI - SQL is not a database, its a language used to communicate with a database (Structured Query Language). I use sql queries within most of my asp pages so I almost consider it part of the ASP language. You can (should) use sql regardless if you use Access, My SQL, or Oracle databases.

[whammy]

What they said. LOL. But seriously, if you are going to make a "client interface", i.e. you let someone ELSE update the website, you have to exert strict control and validation over what they do - especially if they are not net savvy.

You might want to pass on this one and wait until you gain some experience with the server-side language you choose to learn. Nothing personal, but there is no way you're going to make a totally "client-updatable" site if you don't have some experience at it. In order to do that your validation has to be VERY solid.

I have a lot of experience at it, and I am now able to make some pretty unbreakable stuff (but of course, a client who knows nothing about how the internet works would surely enter some bogus information, and not know how to fix their entry, even if it DIDN'T break the application).

So I'm not sure what to tell you there, since anything like that will still have to be maintained. :)

[webmarkart]

As much as I thought the same thing as whammy before, I didn't want to say anything. Users will definitely push every limit to form validation by doing and entering things you never even considered. Looking at all that goes into a system like this its better to have a basic understanding of the languages involved first rather than learn as needed (which is not only time consuming but very fustrating).

I build an admin system for www.tsunis.com that allows them to add/modify/delete any property on their site, control their employee phone directory, as well as any submition requests entered by a site user. It took me over a month to finalize and thats with several years of background in all of the languages mentioned. Less than a week later I had to update part of the form validation because they "broke" it.

[Mhtml]

Lol, "broke" it.

Whammy is right you know. (He's always right):)

You'd have to be some kind of super human to learn enough asp to validate everything, I learnt fso in about an hour. But being able to make sure that no one can "break" it you have to learn a lot more which will obviously take a lot longer.

I think that if you started now you could be able to create something solid enough in a few months.

[dominicall]

Far be it from be to be picky...

use SQL Server if you can rather than Access
My point to robocop was that Access really isn't suitable for anything but a small personal website and that SQL Server is the way to go if he's building a client app.

I concur with whammy too - I really think that robocop should let this one passed if he plans to the whole thing himself - only other solution is to get a good contract programmer on board to do the back-end stuff - then as well as being able to provide the client with what they want he'd also have a website that he could study to help him learn the code.

Dominic :D

[webmarkart]

It wasnt an issue of being picky. I didn't say anything to you, I was merely clarifying the point you were trying to make. I'm sure all of the info we're throwing at robocop is a bit overwhelming and I wanted to make sure he understood, thats all. No need to take it personal.

[dominicall]

Apologies webmarket.... didn't mean it to seem that way - no offence intended.

Dominic :o

[robocop]

wow...i get to work this morning and WHAM....MILLIONS of posts :) hey....i know youll all probably kill me for sayin this....but, is there any 'out of the box software' that would allow me to do this at all for a reasonable price? im always looking for tools to make my job easier.....

kc

[dominicall]

Hmmm.... robocop.... out of the box software...

There are a number of products that may help...

IMHO Dreamweaver MX is the best of the WYSIWYG editors and also IMHO opinion I'd avoid MS Frontpage like the plague.

I started out using Ultradev which actually was a great help in getting a grip in HTML and basic ASP - I could do stuff in the visual editor, then have a look at the code and see how it worked.

However..... I now NEVER use any of these products and do all of my development in a text editor... my personal favourite is Homesite 5 but there are loads of others - another good free text editor is HTML Kit (http://www.chami.com/html-kit/start/) which also has lots of plugins.

You could even be a complete masochist and use Notepad (LOL).

What I found is that once I'd learnt the basics, the flexibility and efficiency of manual coding far outweighs the 'easy to use' WYSIWIG editors. Even DreamweaverMX throws in extra code that can be manually coded much more efficiently.

Two years ago when I started out I could never understand why professional developers manually coded everything and didn't use the nice WYSIWYG editors.... I know now.

These are only my opinions but I learnt from experience and wouldn't change the way I do things now if I were starting out again.

It's worth the effort. Honestly.

Dominic :D

[webmarkart]

Usually the out of the box programs that allow you to make admin systems are very expensive and there are licensing fees involved. You will still need to know how things work in order to customize it to your particular site. I'll look around to see if I can find any examples of this type of software...

[oracleguy]

For beginning server-side programming and what you are going to do, trying DW MX wouldn't be such a bad idea. I'd recommend of course, downloading the free trial from www.macromedia.com

But frankly, to build what you'd need to do, you would definetly not be able to use any WYSIWIYG because the sher ammount of server-side coding that would be so tightly intergrated with all the HTML elemtents, it wouldn't be able to render the page. Thats what hand coding is for :) and besides, you'll have to write all the server side code by hand because its basically impossible for any wizard to generate it. (Beyond any basic scripting)

I started programming ASP about a year ago and I've definetly learned a lot. (Of course I've been programming in visual basic for about 7 years, so thats help a lot) I'd agree with whammy, you should pass on this one... this time. Start small, then progress bigger and before you know it, you'll be able to do it.:)

[Mhtml]

I use a wysiwyg editor for asp..well if you can call my code asp at all I use DW MX, I code it all myself I know it has options to insert you own code into snippets but I couldn't be bothered.

I just like the colors..

[glenngv]

hhmm... seems like it's a job for WebDAV (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=WebDAV&btnG=Google+Search)

stands for Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning.
It's an extension of HTTP protocol that lets you update pages,images,etc in your web site.

[whammy]

I just change files locally and either move them over the network (after backing them up!!! always do that! backup, backup, backup! - I say this because I overwrote some data today (duh) and have to recover it from some other records and a backup from last night... sigh... but the data is not lost *whew*) or I FTP them with SmartFTP.

That's a great little FTP program, especially for free. :)