webdesigners with knowledge of php or better: need an opinion here

[RSI]

I've been leaving my website for quite some time now and I just decided to do a little work on it. I'm still very satisfied with the design itself, and may make minor changes to it, but probably not. What I'm concerned about now is improving the ease to update it, and the efficiency.

Have a look around the site. As you can see it's extremely simple, that's the way I like it. Now, note certain pages like the Projects page. Right now, the way I'm updating that is by using EditPlus and editing projectspage.php, adding tables, cells, etc. This will become extremely cumbersome in the future when updating needs to be done quickly.

I don't really know anything about php, let alone mysql. I use php for the site cause I make use of the <?php include... thing. That made it a lot easier to organize/update the site - but it needs to be easier yet, like actually putting php to use.

So my question to you php developers, or if you've got something better I should know about or use - how could I go about making my whole site easy to update? could it be done, to make some script so all I have to do is type in what I want in this box and it updates the site, or what.. how do all you developers update your sites?

On the main ("Home") page I have GreyMatter (like NewsPro) set up and functioning the way I like it (although there's nothing posted at the moment I believe).

Anyway any input would be greatly appreciated... You could email me (marc@unrealpc.com) if you want.. in fact that might even be a better idea in this case since I have to leave for school right now.

Check this thread when I get home..

-RSI

 

[Czar]

The simplest way would be to create a template file.
That file would just have few includes
like you have

index.php
- include menu.php
- include header.php

this would be the template file

to add another page you edit the template file so it looks like this

whatnot.php
- include menu.php
- include header.php
- include whatnotcontent.php

the whatnotcontent.php would have the text and all that you want to add.


Stil quite a bother, but easy and reqire very little knowledge.

You could database connect it but that reqires some php skills.

 

[SagaLore]

Hey! That's the same way I design my websites. Good to know I'm doing it right.

 

[Wizkid]

Have a look at this:
<a href="http://www.devshed.com/Server_Side/PHP/PHPMySQLPublishing/page1.html">
http://www.devshed.com/Server_Side/PHP/PHPMySQLPublishing/page1.html</A>

You can use phpmyadmin to create tables in the database

https://www.unrealpc.com/mysql

login with the username and password that you created in the control panel (under databases).

 

[RSI]

Czar - that's pretty much what I did. The database connect or whatever is what I was asking about pretty much...

SagaLore - Cool that you design them that way also - but it doesn't mean we're doing it right

Justin - Thanks, I'll bookmark and read that.

Bump for the evening crowd to comment on...

 

[docmanhattan]

<< SagaLore - Cool that you design them that way also - but it doesn't mean we're doing it right >>

Actually, that is a pretty common way of breaking up the content of the page. You can further break it into a presentation layer and application layer and database layer if you want to. It all depends on how much time you want to spend or if you'd prefer to install a package like PHP-Nuke and customize it.

For example: The extranet at my work is an index.php and then within that I have header, menu, main, and footer. The main file is the meat of the site and does all the work, pretty much.

 

[Czar]

RSI,
you could also use phpnuke or postnuke, its not as flexible compared to doing it yourself but it has everything you need.

 

[RSI]

I'll give it a try. Thanks!