Kevin M Posted February 27, 2007 Share Posted February 27, 2007 I'm really interested in making some sort of a script or program to improve my coding skills. Something like a news posting system or a guestbook etc. I want something that will help me improve in HTML, CSS, PHP, MySQL and maybe XML and AJAX too depending on what it is.So does anyone have any suggestions on what would be a good thing for me to create? I don't mean something that I could try to distribute to other people to use, just something to help me improve as a coder. Not something to hard or to easy, but something that will be a bit of a challenge for me as a coder/developer.Thanks,Kevin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pulpfiction Posted February 27, 2007 Share Posted February 27, 2007 Content Management System, complexity depends on features you wanna add to it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jesh Posted February 27, 2007 Share Posted February 27, 2007 If you are into photography, you could make a photo gallery. HTML and CSS for the front end and PHP and MySQL for the back end. You could even throw in AJAX to help switch from one image display to the other (e.g. Click on a thumbnail and use AJAX to load the image and the image description). The AJAX response could come back as XML (so you can return more than one piece of data) and you could use the XML DOM to parse the XML for the information you need. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justsomeguy Posted February 27, 2007 Share Posted February 27, 2007 I agree, when I was wanting to learn I chose a photo gallery. You can learn some of the basics like how to do user login and general database work, plus some more advanced things like working with images, file upload and management, etc. Make a photo gallery that will automatically resize the image to create a thumbnail, maybe searching for images if you have a keyword field for each image, things like that. Something extra would be to use a zip library to extract zip files and add each image in the zip file to the gallery. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PrateekSaxena Posted March 3, 2007 Share Posted March 3, 2007 A CMS or a Forum kind of like IPB with very less features Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin M Posted March 3, 2007 Author Share Posted March 3, 2007 Thanks for the replies. I think I'll go with a gallery. I've been thinking it over for the past few days, and I've got a few ideas in my head. My only other question is, where do I start? It probably sounds weird. Do I design all of the images first? Or make the basic HTML/CSS coding? Or even work on the more advanced "programming" sort of stuff? I have no idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PrateekSaxena Posted March 4, 2007 Share Posted March 4, 2007 Read this book http://gettingreal.37signals.com/toc.php . I am sure it will get you started...it is a small book and you can read it in 2hours even if you are a slow reader like me!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xenon Design Posted March 4, 2007 Share Posted March 4, 2007 Make the gallery project with Ajax that controls and load the images and make a ranking system.Use like a 'digging' system where people put +1 for their fav. picture. This will help you judge what pictures are good so you can make more that are appealing.Sound good? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PrateekSaxena Posted March 4, 2007 Share Posted March 4, 2007 Hmm...I kind of like that idea too...similar to FlickR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin M Posted March 4, 2007 Author Share Posted March 4, 2007 Ok, I'll take a look at that book, thanks Prateek.I was thinking of using AJAX to sort of dinamically change the page content with out making the user re-load the page. A ranking system would be good, I'll probably add that in. Would comments be a good idea as well maybe? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PrateekSaxena Posted March 4, 2007 Share Posted March 4, 2007 Yup....but would you use XML or SQL to save them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin M Posted March 4, 2007 Author Share Posted March 4, 2007 I haven't really decided yet. I was thinking of doing all of the images and categories stuff in MySQL, but XML could work too. I don't really have more experience in one or the other as of right now. What do you think would be easier and more efficient to do? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PrateekSaxena Posted March 4, 2007 Share Posted March 4, 2007 It depends if your Host has MySQL. If it does then I suggest you use it for its security, speedy queries and stuff. But if it does not then you have no choice but to use XML.to read more on that debate you can go on this too - http://w3schools.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=11317 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin M Posted March 4, 2007 Author Share Posted March 4, 2007 My current host does have MySQL (It's a free one too. ) But if I ever start to pay for hosting, I would definately get a host that supports it. That was a good topic for me to read, thanks. So if I were going to do it with XML, it could be something like this: <comment><user>Name of user who posted</user><id>ID of comment (1,2,3,4)</id><message>Message</message></comment> Would something like that work? Or would it take a while to parse it, and load the page? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PrateekSaxena Posted March 4, 2007 Share Posted March 4, 2007 I think you kind of missed out the part that I actually wanted you to see. I am talking about usernames and passwords. You cant store them in XML files without some sort of encryption or some DigitalJunkie may open them and see all the passwords! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boen_robot Posted March 4, 2007 Share Posted March 4, 2007 If comments would be left by guests (no accounts) the way blogs do, you don't need MySQL, but you might as well use it.Btw, scince ID is a plain integer and probably won't extend any further, I suggest this XML structure: <comment id="number"><user>Name of user who posted</user><message>Message</message></comment> And FYI, W3C has a demonstration called Annotea which uses RDF files to keep annotations (annotation- comments, notes, explanations, or other types of external remarks). It takes XML databases to the next level. I wouldn't say it's better to use RDF, but it sure is nice if people would use a standart dictionary set. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin M Posted March 4, 2007 Author Share Posted March 4, 2007 Ok, thanks. If I use XML, I'll use a structure similar (If not exact) to that one. Is it really worth going through the trouble of encrypting the XML files, when I could do it with MySQL and not have to encrypt? That Annotea project looks interesting, but I only have knowledge of XML right now. Would it be worth doing something with RDF? And if I did decide to do something similar, what other XML based languages would I need to make myself familiar with? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boen_robot Posted March 4, 2007 Share Posted March 4, 2007 Ok, thanks. If I use XML, I'll use a structure similar (If not exact) to that one. Is it really worth going through the trouble of encrypting the XML files, when I could do it with MySQL and not have to encrypt? That Annotea project looks interesting, but I only have knowledge of XML right now. Would it be worth doing something with RDF? And if I did decide to do something similar, what other XML based languages would I need to make myself familiar with?OK, I guess you mashed up in my comments and Prateek's ones. Let me try to clarify.For data that doesn't need to be secured, that would be visible for anyone from another place, it's not worth to encrypt XML. Infact, it's highly advisable that you don't do that for efficiency's sake.For data that needs to be secured such as passwords, and you don't have MySQL available, it's worth encrypting the XML and hiding it with .htaccess whenever you can. When you have MySQL, it's more effcient to use it instead, and is just as secured.As I said, it's not better to use RDF. RDF is XML. XML dictionary/specification that contains standart elements. Using it makes your application accessable to applications that were designed for RDF. However, for a task as simple as comments on photos, a custom XML dictionary would do just as fine. Infact, if you keep the structure THIS simple, it would be a breeze for people to try and create new applications that will reuse your comments. One such application could convert your XML dictionary to RDF, which will then open the world of RDF, known as the semantic web. That's actually the beauty of XML. As long as you use anything XML based, you don't have to do anything else XML based. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin M Posted March 4, 2007 Author Share Posted March 4, 2007 I guess I was a bit confused there.Thanks for the clarifitcation. I think I sort of understand now. I'm leaning more towards that a user wouldn't have to log in to post a comment. It would be a form that would have name, e-mail/website and comment. Or do you think it would be better to have some sort of log-in system, where the user would have to be logged in to add a comment? If I do this, I think I may use MySQL. The XML library sounds interesting, but I'm not sure if I'm good enough yet as a developer/programmer to do something like this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boen_robot Posted March 4, 2007 Share Posted March 4, 2007 From a user point of view, I'll say that if it's a public gallery, where everyone can post pictures, there MUST be registration available, but for comments, it should be optional. Ideally, the admin should be able to select whether to require that for comments or not.If the gallery is personal (much like a blog), then there shouldn't be registration. I for one, would never register at someone's personal are just to comment on what (s)he has. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin M Posted March 4, 2007 Author Share Posted March 4, 2007 Good idea. It's not going to be something that I would try to get people to use. More for a learning experience. If I ever use it, it will be for a personal site of mine, so for that I wouldn't require people to register. If it turns out well, and I use it for say a fan site I decide to create, then that would be different, and I would probably have add in a registration option.I've actually been working on a template for my own personal site the last little while, so maybe I will use it there.Thanks for all the help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jesh Posted March 5, 2007 Share Posted March 5, 2007 While it sounds like you are leaning towards not requiring people to log into your site in order to leave comments, you'll probably still want to set up a user management system (at least for experience) where you are the only user. That way, you have to log into the site in order to upload new photos, comments, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin M Posted March 5, 2007 Author Share Posted March 5, 2007 That's probably what I'll do. Have it set so that only "adminstrators" can add images to the gallery. But a user doesn't have to log-in to leave a comment or rate a photo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aspnetguy Posted March 5, 2007 Share Posted March 5, 2007 these days not requiring some sort of interaction from the user (login or captcha) is just a spam disaster waiting to happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jesh Posted March 5, 2007 Share Posted March 5, 2007 There you go, you could include a captcha control as well! The features just keep piling on! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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