jh-demco Posted March 12, 2008 Share Posted March 12, 2008 Hi all,Where I work we have a simple, very simple website, just links with text. I was presented with the task of creating a Catalog for our customers to view and inquire about pricing and availability. I suggested putting it online, rather than sending out a paper version, it would need updates and such and would cost us in paper and binding resources, where we already have decent webspace, and I think I am capable of learning to implement this, my bosses agree that an online version would be better since our customers (most of them) have access to the web.I didn't completely waste a full day yesterday searching but I pretty much did, I did get to look at plenty tutorials here on CSS, some SQL, and some PHP scripting basics, but I didn't find what I was looking for. One of our guys at work has already ordered a new version of the program he used to create the website, CoffeeCup, anyone use it?? He is also looking into a program to deal with some of the SQL stuff, but has "too many irons in the fire" to deal with it and help me out so I'm stuck with nothing.From what I have read to create a "database" accessible through the web, presentable as a catalog for our customers, I will need to learn SQL and PHP and how they can interact with eachother, please correct me if I am wrong. Is there more to it than utilizing those two? ATM its all greek to me, and right now the guy who handles our server is out on a repair job, but I have nothing to do at work but learn on how they work.What is good software to use for SQL and PHP, also it would be really nice if it could pull data from Excel, I have about 95% of my info for the products in there and would be nice if I could just export data from there into the new database. I am very much a newb but think of myself as a fairly quick learner, and mostly self taught on most of what I know, but I have always had the correct software necessary to learn. In this instance I have nothing to start with and am looking for a gentle nudge in the right direction.Any help at all is greatly appreciated,JoshDemco Mfg, Inc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newseed Posted March 12, 2008 Share Posted March 12, 2008 Although I agree that one should know some language to implement software, you shouldn't have to reinvent the wheel.You can check out http://www.earlyimpact.com/ which is one I deal with often. A client I work for uses this exclusively for all his clients and so it's pretty good and flexible.If budget is an issues, then you are probably going to have to use a open source software but keep in mind that the support will be somewhat limitedI don't know about import excel data but I am sure you can ask the questions to the support people from that site. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jh-demco Posted March 12, 2008 Author Share Posted March 12, 2008 Thanks for the link but budget is going to be an issue, my bosses do not want me to list prices online, and do not want a "shopping cart". They do want the customer to be able to add a few products to a list, and then submit them to us for pricing and availability, a requisition essentially. It is not for the general public, we deal with other corporations, Georgia Pacific, Louisiana Pacific, Boise-Cascade, all plywood/particleboard/OSB mills, we just need this to be usable for them. I and everyone else here wants a K.I.S.S system, I don't want to reinvent the wheel, just the tire.Yesterday, I think I was able to make a little bit of progress, when I found THIS. Once I get going I think I can manipulate this and make it work the way I need it to, but to use it I need SQL and PHP software, or do I, I don't know, like I said PHP and SQL are greek to me, and I have NEVER touched them, I would like to use them as I can create applications later on to help out in our business. Another question, I read through the tutorials on W3 on PHP and SQL and I still don't understand how you edit code for them, do you write it in a HTML editor or what?Josh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justsomeguy Posted March 12, 2008 Share Posted March 12, 2008 You can write code in any text editor, they are just text files. There is a link in my signature to ConTEXT, which is the one I use (I'm using 0.98.3 until a new version comes out, 0.98.5 has bugs). You will need both PHP and MySQL to be installed on the web server in order to run them though, and to manage your database you can install something like phpMyAdmin, which is a PHP application that manages MySQL databases. It will let you set up all of your tables and fields and things in the database.If you want to learn how to build something like you need as quickly as possible and have a good understanding of how it works, then I recommend this book:http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/webdbapps2/We can help you put something together, but you probably won't understand it all that well. I haven't found many good tutorials online, I'm not sure what it is but learning programming doesn't translate very well to an online tutorial. Or, another possibility is to just hire someone to build the site for you, I build custom database-driven websites quite a bit if you want to get a quote to see what it would take to put something like this together. I've even built a site with a catalog (not a shopping cart, just an email form) where the items get imported from an Excel workbook with one worksheet for each item category. If you do a Google search for "php read excel" you should find several resources. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jh-demco Posted March 12, 2008 Author Share Posted March 12, 2008 Time isn't so much an issue justsomeguy, I just have nothing to do here at work and am trying to learn all I can so I can make some sort of progress. I got MySQL to work and am playing around with databases and tables and such. We have a server here at work but I want to setup a test server so I can keep myself from screwing with our work files on accident. I hear alot of people talking about Apache but I have tried about 3 or 4 times and the http://localhost/ is a error page for me, I download the one thats the .msi file and get it installing but it asks for a Domain Name, Server and email address. I just want to create a self contained test server on my workstation, any tricks??Also from what I've read you install the PHP and MySQL onto the server, just install them into its Directory?? Again I apologize for being so new to this but if I ever though they would ask me to create this I would have looked into taking atleast a few classes at my local college or something. I really want to learn this for future endeavors I appreciate all the advice I have gotten so far.Josh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justsomeguy Posted March 12, 2008 Share Posted March 12, 2008 There are packages that you can use to install everything you need, like WAMP or XAMPP. If you do a Google search for them you should find some information. Otherwise I would tell you to just read through the documentation for Apache and see what it says, I haven't installed Apache so I'm not sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jh-demco Posted March 13, 2008 Author Share Posted March 13, 2008 Thanks justsomeguy, I got a testing server setup finally, I used XAMPP to get Apache working, and I got MySQL and PHP with it, everything seems ok. I even got Shop-Script to work, now I need to find out how to alter it to not do a Shopping Cart but do an Inquiry/Requisition List instead.Josh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justsomeguy Posted March 13, 2008 Share Posted March 13, 2008 There's a topic in the PHP forum called PHP Tips and Tutorials that has a section about processing a submitted form which might be of some help. There is also a PHP forms tutorial on the w3schools site. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jh-demco Posted March 14, 2008 Author Share Posted March 14, 2008 Yeah I read through most of that, and found out what part of the scripts were for the shopping cart, and took out the parts I needed to take out the pricing. I still have to input each product with a price but the Users will never see it, the prices still show when I made a test order on my end but not to the person entering in his/her info.I still need to find the file(s) that contain the output text for the Shopping Cart label(s) and also change the buttons to not show it as a cart, but a req. list. I also need to manipulate the User Info page to show more relevant info for the company, as in right now its setup for individuals, not employees thier respective companies. I should be able to fix all of this tomorrow and start tweaking the database to better suit me, and also setup a file to import in rather than setting each product one by one. Today I just ran out of time at the office.Josh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jh-demco Posted March 19, 2008 Author Share Posted March 19, 2008 Thanks for all the help justsomeguy, I got it up and running, somewhat, its not 100% yet, but its a functional site nonetheless. This is my company's site, now with a catalog, no pics uploaded yet, but here is the LINK.Hopefully tomorrow I can start photographing parts and logging them into the database and get it fully functional.Thanks again,Josh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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