PHP/MySQL Newbie

[JT4862]

Can anyone help with some reference material on PHP and MySQL. I got thrown to the wolves here..lol I have pretty good CSS and HTML knowledge (enough to be dangerous). My church is wanting to do a complete site revamp. Right now everything is pretty much static. Im looking to implement PHP into the site, since that's how you do really cool stuff. I know what I want to achieve but lack the knowledge of how to do it so Im stuck. Basically I need to go back to the basics. I picked up the PHP & MySQL for Dummies book. It has helped somewhat but im still lost in the woods. I would be willing to trade my knowledge in Video editing and Lighting to anyone who needs it. our Website is Lifechurchgermantown.com

Thanks
John

[[Admin] skstarkiller]

you should check out a Content Management System like Drupal, Joomla, or Wordpress. They handle the heavy lifting and let you use php and mysql without a lot of trouble

[[Admin] danroth]

www.php.net
www.mysql.com

[greg4god]

Along the lines of CMS's I looked at installing this one before:

http://www.cmsmadesimple.org/

While Drupal and the others have more addon's and such I found this one to have a more simplified admin for the "average" user, not so many settings to scare someone and/or for them to accidently do.

A general site using PHP and mySQL isn't to hard, depending on what you are wanting available. Some examples of things to consider:

Are you just wanting it easier for one person to add/maintain things, or needing it so several people can login to change data.

What content do you wanted edited? just main text in the middle of a template or have it feed things like upcoming events, cataloging online copies of the services, etc?

Now if you go the route of writing your own, IMO always good to learn, however when writing your own CMS, keep this in mind: User input validation, this is not only of forms, but things such as query string values. (some of your good friends will be preg_repalce, addslashes).

Also for a site where others will be adding content, keep in mind what they may enter, their use of quotes, and less than signs can chance messig up your display (some of your good friends will be strip_tags and htmlspecialchars).

What to use to edit the content.. At work we have been using tinymce (http://tinymce.moxiecode.com/), which seems pretty decent at making good code, and fairly easy at modifying what options you want the end user to have.

Well there is just some food for though while i'm waiting for my car to warm up

Good luck with it. Learning to program is always a win-win if you stick with it!

-Greg

[waynehoskins]

PHP and MySQL are pretty straightforward. PHP reads very much like C, and MySQL is, well, SQL.

But you may really want to look hard at a prebuilt CMS. I originally intended to restricted-CMS our site, but I never got around to building most of it .. we're going to Wordpress shortly.

If you want to play with coding stuff yourself, the O'Reilly books (the small ones) are must-haves. They have solved many a problem, usually along the lines of "what's the syntax of that function?" or "is it substr_replace or str_replace I want?".

[JT4862]

Almost everyone has suggested some kind of CMS to me. My question/Concern is how much control over the "look" and "feel" do I have? and do you guys have any example sites to point me to that are manages by a CMS

Thanks
John

[LeAnn B]

These are all joomla with templates from templateplazza, rockettheme and christiantemplatesonline.com
www.fbctexhoma.com
www.gibsonbaptistcamp.com
http://buttefullgospelag.org/

[greg4god]

Pretty much most CMS you can have any look you want, the trick is adapting a stattic page into a template to use.

Also on the lines of reference for PHP, one thing I love is how their site is easily set up for reference. In you browser just enter php.net/fucntion and you are taken right to it. Very nice. If you go for online tutrorials, and there are plenty of good ones out there, try to avoid older ones. I still come across ones written for PHP 3. Some older coding methods may still work on the server you are using, but best to keep current for better movement to another host and future required upgrades to PHP at your current place.

-Greg