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Basic Design Question

Posted: Mon May 24, 2010 11:33 am
by mickyjune26
Before I get too far into my current project, I thought I'd run the basic design past everyone.

Goal: Upload files using a form, automatically placing them in the appropriate folder on the web server

1. User fills out standard demographic info (name, e-mail, etc)
2. User clicks Browse to select file to upload
3. Next to Browse, user selects appropriate grade level from drop-down list
4. Next to Grade level, user selects appropriate subject area (such as science) form drop-down list
5. User clicks Add More and javascript dynamically adds another row that contains Browse, Grade Level drop-down, and Subject drop-down
6. User can keep adding files by clicking Add More
7. User eventually clicks Submit, and PHP-form processor uploads each file to the appropriate Grade Level > Subject Area subfolder (such as Grade 3 > Science or Grade 7 > Math)
8. Users demographic information is stored in MySQL database.

Is this a good design method, or should I consider other models?

thanks,

Re: Basic Design Question

Posted: Mon May 24, 2010 9:52 pm
by JakeJ
The work flow sounds just fine.

The important things to make sure you have in place are:

1. SECURITY!!!! When allowing users to upload files, restrict users to ONLY the file types they are allowed to upload. Set size limits where appropriate and make DANGED SURE that the directory that the files are going to does NOT have execute permissions.

2. Database design. Make sure to use good normalization techniques.

Re: Basic Design Question

Posted: Tue May 25, 2010 7:22 am
by mickyjune26
Do you have some preferrered tutorials i could run through to get a start in these two areas?

Re: Basic Design Question

Posted: Tue May 25, 2010 8:43 am
by JakeJ
Nothing preferred no, but read 3 of each so you get a better general sense of things.