PHP Scripts for a new music website

XML, Perl, Python, and other languages can be discussed here, even if it isn't PHP (We might forgive you).

Moderator: General Moderators

Post Reply
davidapple
Forum Newbie
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Oct 25, 2008 6:22 am

PHP Scripts for a new music website

Post by davidapple »

Hiya Everyone,

I'm new here so this is my first post but not my last. I need quite a bit of help with quite an ambitious plan I have for my new music website.

I am very good a creating HTML Forms and using CSS to style them but when people hit submit, I need help with the PHP scripting :oops: I am happy to look through tutorials and learn the language if you can recommend some.

My Fantastic Idea - Part 1
I want a page called 'Submit a Review' where people can write a review of a gig, hit submit and then a PHP script does the following...

adds some HTML tags like <h1>, <p> and <float>.
adds some code to the end that will be the footer.
Save's the review as a HTML file in a folder called /includes/submissions/
Emails three email addresses with the the subject 'xxx has submitted a review'
The email should contain the review in plain text plus a link to the saved file.

This page should only be accessible by people who know the submission password. This password should be encrypted. I'm not going to bother with separate accounts.

The fields in this form will be... Title, Image URL, Review, Author, Password (again), Another box for called something like 'name a fruit' to stop bots? maybe?

Part 2
I want a password protected page called 'Approve a Review' where there are three large textareas with the html code of the newly submitted review, my homepage, my RSS feed and my navigation menu. So I am then able to edit the html of these pages to include the new review (using SSI), hit submit and the pages will be overwritten. There should also be an option to download the current html files as backup if the whole process goes tits up!

So what do you think guys? Is this possible? Can you recommend any tutorials?
User avatar
califdon
Jack of Zircons
Posts: 4484
Joined: Thu Nov 09, 2006 8:30 pm
Location: California, USA

Re: PHP Scripts for a new music website

Post by califdon »

I have moved this topic to Miscellaneous.

Of course it's possible. Can you do it by reading a few tutorials? Probably not. Can you learn PHP and MySQL over a period of months and gradually build up your skill level with easier projects, and eventually write your scripts for a really classy system? Almost certainly. The web is filled with tutorials, some of them are even very good. Since you already know HTML/CSS (and Javascript?), you're off to a good start. There are good tutorials on all these (and many other) topics at http://w3schools.com.

Another approach would be to look for scripts already written that might fit 90% of your needs. I haven't looked for them, but I would guess there are such scripts, just waiting for you to Google for them. If you find one that's close to your needs, you can probably figure out how to modify it, and you can ask specific questions here in this forum.
davidapple
Forum Newbie
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Oct 25, 2008 6:22 am

Re: PHP Scripts for a new music website

Post by davidapple »

Thanks Califdon. I will check out the W3C site right away. I might get the "Dummies Guide to PHP" as well. If I get stuck with any part of creating these mammoth scripts I will let you know. I can imagine the encryption part and the security bits will be the biggest problems.

I already have a PHP script that emails a form to me so that bit I'm alright with. I suppose the next script I'm after is one that creates a html file and saves it to a folder on a website. Anyone know where I can find one like this?
Post Reply