Suggestions needed about Web-Database

[kennbona]

hi, I'm looking for someone to give me some tips about a problem i have.

I was asked by a friend to create a custom Website for a Local Car Modding Shop/Dealer.
Obviously new parts are going to be available each month that he never had in the shop before, so the website needs to have an easy way to add data to the website about new products...

It also needs to be simple and easy to navigate.

The theme and graphical look of the website is no problem, i'm quite competent in that field. However, i need someone to suggest what's the best/easiest way to make a website get data off of a database.

I consider my experiance with HTML as Moderate to Mediocore. However i dont really think that HTML - SQL is the best combination "If at all possible".. i know that php would handle SQL better, but i dont have a clue with PHP.

I just need some one to point me in the right direction.. or give me some links to help me with this problem..

Thanks in advance
kenneth
Edit:
Anyone? i was thinking about using asp.net for this problem but then i dont know how and where to start with asp.net.

 

[fempower]

Try logging into the cPanel for your x10 site, under the Software/ Services section click Fantastico Deluxe, and under the E-Commerce section choose Zen Cart or CubeCart. They are online store packages that will handle the database parts for you.

 

[epoclaen]

Yeah, having something do the work for you is of course ideal. Sometimes things are clearer though when you design the system yourself. You should try the above suggestion first to see if it suits your needs or at least you'd be able to dissect the scripts and see what it's doing and maybe mod pieces of them to suit your needs.

SQL is ideal in most cases but you'll need CGI or PHP or ASP or some other server-side language to store products in a database. This can't be done using just HTML or javascript.

What you can do is to use XML and HTML to make adding new products easier and cleaner. Doing this would require less of a learning curve than ASP or PHP too. You can see what I mean in the "XML to HTML" section at http://www.w3schools.com/xml/xml_examples.asp. There's other example pages there that will help make things easy. The only drawback is that in order to update the product listings either you or the client will need to upload the new XML file to update the listings whereas using a database would let you or them do this directly from an administration page.

Jeff

 

[kennbona]

hmm..

thanks for the replies fempower & epoclaen, Will put both of your tips into action. This was the first time that i was trying to make a database driven website and without any prior knowlage of php and ASP, i knew it wouldn't be easy. But ill start messing with Zen Cart or CubeCart and see what i come up with.

so, what does this Zen Cart or CubeCart actualy do? handling the database as in.. alowing someone to easily enter new data to the database? or something else? "just in case i cant understand when playing around with Zen Cart"

Thanks for the help again

Ken
Edit:
Ok, i think i know what it is, a sort of online shopping module that lists all the products available at the store and the ability to order them.. i like this already, so how can i include this into the website i was building? i was thinking along the lines of using an I Frame just under the banner even though this is no longer the standard, i think it will be well suted for this.

What do you think?

Thanks
Ken

 

[mattura]

You can probably customise it (particularly the style sheet) to suit your site, rather than locking in an iframe. Get the code working first, then use your web design skills on it. Then you don't need to learn php or anything but can make it look good.

 

[epoclaen]

You might need/want a brief explanation of what PHP is and how it works in order to be better informed about how to integrate the shopping cart items into your current HTML pages. Since Zen Cart uses PHP, you'll likely need to learn some PHP basics.

A PHP webpage does not need to include any PHP code. It may be 100% HTML if you like - just change the file extension from ".html" to ".php" instead and you've made your current web pages into PHP pages. This file extension allows you to insert <?php {code} ?> code blocks into the HTML page. Ideally, the Shopping Cart system you'd want to use would run as stand-alone modules so that instead of sticking an iFrame in below your banner, you'd just use <?php include ("showNewProducts.php"); ?> or call some similar PHP page that displays your products, new products, a brief listing of products, a thorough description of a single product, etc....

Zen Cart appears (note that I'm not very familiar with Zen Cart) to build entire pages of PHP code to display items and administer the database and use a template system to define the look and feel of the pages rather than letting you insert modules into a more standard HTML page. It's entirely possible that Zen Cart uses modules that you can cannibalize from it and use it in this way but it's doubtful. What this means is that you'll essentially be rebuilding the entire website using the Zen Cart system and its templates which you need to learn to design. Most Blog, Newsreader, and other Content Management Systems tend to use this "template" type of website integration and I can say from personal experience that, for me, learning how to use such systems and rewriting my webpages was more work than writing my own database PHP code. Then again I'm moderately good at PHP coding already but you'd have a much higher learning curve.

So when Mattura says that

you can probably customize it to suit your site

he's referring to the Zen Cart's PHP page that lists the products and you'd need to learn how to add your normal banner, header, footer, menu bar, etc... to the Zen Cart template of the product order page. As an example, check out my website's Projects page and take a good look at the "Projects" button on the menu bar and the dropdown menu for it. This was my original website template/style. Now hit the "News" button and take a good look at the "Projects" button on the menu bar again. See how the menu bar has changed? This is because the "News" page is using its own style/template system for the News CMS system I am using and I had such a hard time matching my regular template/style to the CMS system's template parameters that I got it as close as I could and left it at that. But anyway, that's what you'll be wanting to do with your website. Any page that uses any part of the Zen Cart system will likely need to use the Zen Cart template/style.

Ideally you'll want to convert all your HTML pages to use the Zen Cart templates so that the styles will all be consistent, thus looking more professional. This means learning how to build your own templates in Zen Cart but given the nice features of the Zen Cart system it will likely be worth it.

Jeff

 

[kennbona]

Thanks for the reply Jeff, ive already installed Zen Cart and from the look's of it i will most definately have to edit it's look to make it blend with the rest of the website. I've Used Php-Nuke before and i've managed to edit the look for the themes, with some success.. i only managed to change the images that the theme used but i never edited any php code before, so ill be looking to start learning some php.. then ill see what i can do.. thanks for the help and tips.. i really appreciate it!

Ken

 

[tonykgv]

Why dont you try Joomla, Drupal, and the other cms products in Fantastico. They interact with MySql automatically and the theme sites may provide you the base to work with if you can deal with html/css. They provide a little more flexibility than the cart systems

 

[knights_templar]

oscommerce is also good and is inside fantastico, I have been using it for years.