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php guidence: keeping it few pages

Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 12:12 am
by Staci Star
Hi! I am a new to the forums, I am a graphic designer and have always been curious about php but I am only 17 so I have mostly been mastering my skills in flash, photoshop, dreamweaver and now I could really use some guidence in php becuz I have been on a benge building my site non-stop for a couple months and just now realized its all going to blow up in my face if I don't do something quick. I have been looking endlessly and have not found anything that would solve my problem (which is quite odd, considering my problem is pretty simple). My host supports php, I know how to work it and I am currently converting all of my html pages to php format. I hope there is someone that could share a tit bit of thier knowledge with an idiot like myself...

I can't get my head around php yet, so if what Im saying sounds idiotic, please slap me. This is in my words what I need, I just mostly want to be able to quickly manage everything by myself if thats cool:

1 - I need individual pages for each U.S. city (thats done).

2 - Every City will have a dynamic list of bars, each bar link will dynamically link to its dynamic page w/o actually creating any page files!

if u would help, heres my project which still looks a bit choppy but to see were Im going check localbarsonly.com

Bottomline, I have to find a way to quickly manage my site without caking my server with tons of html docs.

thank you,
Staci

Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 12:21 am
by feyd
Sounds like a job for a CMS (Content Management System).. perhaps Joomla/Mambo?

Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 12:24 am
by Staci Star
You just saved my life!!! Thanks a TON!

Staci

Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 2:00 am
by matthijs
Staci, from what I understand, Feyds suggestion to go for an existing cms is indeed a good one. Joomla and mambo are both well known systems. But I have no personal experience with them. I do have with wordpress, a system which is used a lot. It's main purpose is a blogging tool, but it can handle bigger sites with pages, sections etc very well. It's strengths are it's good documentation and huge support (forums, websites, plugins, etc etc). And it's very flexible without complicating things.

And that's one of the biggest problem I personally have with a lot of cms systems: the steep learning curve to be able to use and personalize them. Most systems are easy to install and get running, but once you want to change a few things (templates etc) thing gets complicated.

Well, enough babble, good luck and if you are going to use wp I can always help.

Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 2:11 am
by Staci Star
yeah, I haven't had any luck so far with either cms so if your still on I could really use your help!

If anyone knows something that would work well for my situation I would be very happy to hear about it.

thanks again,
Staci

Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 7:10 am
by Buddha443556
Staci Star wrote:If anyone knows something that would work well for my situation I would be very happy to hear about it.
Your situation seems to include a shared server (running Microsoft! Godaddy?) with 1400+ other accounts.
... without caking my server with tons of html docs.
On a shared server, HTML is your best friend. You can get a ton of traffic out of HTML especially if you keep the pages lite. Most CMS aren't designed for shared servers.

Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 3:15 pm
by Staci Star
Buddha443556 wrote:
Staci Star wrote:If anyone knows something that would work well for my situation I would be very happy to hear about it.
Your situation seems to include a shared server (running Microsoft! Godaddy?) with 1400+ other accounts.
yeah, I just now had it switched to linux (thank god), and as far as making thousands of html files I cant manage for the sake of traffic I would choose managability over the traffic stats.
Thanks