Page 1 of 1

Help build a catalog (UNPAID WORK)

Posted: Sun Oct 09, 2005 11:38 pm
by jedi_TAW
The Art Of Warfare - War College Library Catalog

Who We Are?
The Art Of Warfare (TAW) is an international online gaming clan with over 600 members spanning North American, South America, Europe, and Australia. We actively play over 12 PC (Battlefield 2, Call of Duty, Far Cry, Half Life, American’s Army are just a few of the games we play) games in active competition online and have a paramilitary structure in order to manage such a large organization. Each division is self-sufficient in that their members provide donations to maintain the game servers they play on. The organization’s website is also maintained by donations.

You can learn more about our clan by going to our website: http://theartofwarfare.net

Our Challenge
I have been tasked to create the TAW War College (WC) will be act as the central file repository for all division training files so that our members can easy access them whenever they need them. Our current structure has each division storing their training files all over the place (online servers, members computers, etc..) The TAW WC will create and maintain a catalog system of all division’s training files to be accessed via web pages on the TAW Member’s Only section. The TAW website work under LAMP software (Linux, Apache Server, Mysql, and PHP)

Details of the Challenge
Here is an image of what the WC Catalog looks like conceptually.
Link to image http://www.theartofwarfare.net/ftp/wc/zz_d...urse_layout.png

---War College Database ---
TABLE: ***S_LEVEL***
Level TINYINT

TABLE: ***S_ACADEMY***
Academy TINYTEXT

TABLE: ***S_TOPIC***
Topic TINYTEXT

TABLE: ***S_DIVISION***
Division TINYTEXT

TABLE: ***S_FORMAT***
ID_Format TINYINT [Primary Key]
Type TINYTEXT
URL2Image TEXT

TABLE: ***D_COURSE_URL***
ID_WC INT [Foriegn Key: D_COURSE]
ID_Format TINYINT [Foriegn Key: S_FORMAT]
URL2Course TEXT

TABLE: ***D_COURSE***
ID_WC INT [Primary Key]
Academy TINYTEXT [Link to S_ACADEMY] [1]
Level TINYTEXT [Link to S_LEVEL] [1]
Topic TINYTEXT [Link to S_TOPIC] [1]
Division TINYTEXT [Link to S_DIVISION] [1]
Title TEXT
Course_Num INT
Num_of_Files TINYINT
Summary LONGTEXT

NOTES:
[1] In MS Access you can create relationships between tables so that the user must choose a value from within the “linked” table for the D_COURSE table and this way they can not add their own values. That is what I am hoping can be done with Mysql.

---War College HTML Page 1: Searching the Catalog ---
(Note these images were created in Visual Basic just to give the developer an idea of what I am looking for in terms of an HTML page)
Link to image http://www.maj.com/gallery/jediagh/TAW/misc/wcc_search.gif

---War College HTML Page 2: Viewing the Catalog ---
Look at the sample Battlefield 100 Level Courses – Basic Land
After a user click on the search page it should page to a page showing the following:
Course Number
Course Title
Academy
Title
Summary (LINK to a summary HTML page)
Format (LINK to the files for this course)

---War College HTML Page 3: Adding to the Catalog ---
link to image http://www.maj.com/gallery/jediagh/TAW/misc/wcc_add.gif


Why I am asking for help
I have “very limited” experience with PHP and just begun to get my feet wet with Mysql. Most of my experience has been with MS Access, Visual Basic, and building static HTML pages. TAW’s web team is already over extended and cannot help me in building the WC course catalog thus why I am posting here.

Thank you all for your time.
If you are interested please email me at “jedi @ theartofwarfare.net”

=====================================================
***Colonel Jedi*** || XFIRE: jeditaw
The Art Of Warfare || http://www.theartofwarfare.net
War College Commandant || http://wc.theartofwarfare.net
=====================================================

Posted: Sun Oct 09, 2005 11:51 pm
by feyd
You erroneously posted this thread in the code discussion forum. Moved to Volunteer Work

Posted: Sun Oct 09, 2005 11:53 pm
by jedi_TAW
Opps!!! Sorry.... :oops:

Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2005 8:05 pm
by d3ad1ysp0rk
With over 600 members, you can't add one more to the web team to aid you?

Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2005 11:15 pm
by jedi_TAW
The "original web team" that created the website about 4+ years ago have all left. :(
The website was designed in such a way that it was extremely easy to maintain.
However no one had the expertise to update the website. :cry:
Recall that this is a gaming clan and 95% of our members are here to play games.
The "top level" of the organization is composed of about 20 members who have maitained the order, structure, and direction of the clan. Being part of the "top level" I can attest that it's a full time job almost apart from my real world paying job. :lol:

Now back to the story... About 2 years ago (when I joined the clan) we had just 1 webmaster (with knowledge to maintain the site and add stuff). His list of "things to add" to the website continued to grow and grow and it got so much that he just could not keep up. Plus he got married and advised that he just wanted to play. Can not blame him for that.

So a 2nd web team was developed to help clear out the "things to add" list. They worked for about 2 weeks before they fell apart. We got some added functionality to the website but the web team split up becuase they just want to play. Again I can not blam them for that.

In the past 2 months, I have been spending more of my time doing "backend managment" than actually playing in the clan. I unfortunately do not have the experience with Mysql or PHP. All my experience is with MS Access and VB.

I know the logic behind what I want but just don't have the time to learn Mysql and PHP. I work 1 full time job and have 2 part time jobs. So when I do have free time I would like to play with the clan as well. I have in the past 2 days been learning Mgsql and have actually build the database (well almost all of it) but the PHP code is kicking my butt. :cry: