giles

Hello, for my alpaca farm site, I have been asked to make a search box thing to make it easier for ppl to browse through all the different alpacas and narrow what they are look for down (eg: black alpacas, or male alpacas etc"

here an example of the exact thing I am needthing:

http://www.pinjarraalpacas.com/saleslist/index.shtml

I think I need mysql and PHP, but I have no idea what mysql is, or what it does, and I dont no how to write PHP scripts, So i am in need or alot of help!!

Thanks for any help

Webforumz Staff

Ok, well you're definetly better looking for an already written search script then. Try:

http://www.hotscripts.com/

as they have thousands of PHP scripts alone.

You do, of course, have the slightly bigger problem in that you need to get details of your alpacas onto into the database in order for your search script to be able to search through them.

I would assume that you will want your client to be able to add/edit/remove details too.... this is where things get quite complicated and it's no longer practical for us to help you (unless of course you can find yet another script to do this for you!).

If you have already quoted for this site at a fairly low amount, then I would suggest you tell them of the sort of site that they seem to require (database driven) and possibly find another individual with more experience who can write a simple set of scripts to do this for you. You can then add this onto your client charge.

You should really do that if you are looking to develop a professional product.

Smokie

these alpaca things are really strange looking arent they!!! What the hell are they? like lama's or something?

giles

they have paid $500 (which is the most I have charged so far for a web site) and I really want to do this myself, whether I get a pre writen script or not - theres no real run, has to by finished my march i would say, so i might get a few books, but I dont want to give this for someone else to do

giles

and my client wont be adding nething, I'm doing all the updating

giles

what exactly is what I am wanting to do called?

giles

ok, i have contacted the people that made the alpaca site I should ou (the one with the example) and I have asked for their help, and that I would give them some money if they help me. lol, this is stressing me out, and I have scool in about a week! going into yr 11 - vce :S so i want to get this site done b4 then

Smokie

put another shrimp on the barby mate?

Webforumz Staff

We can answer specific questions as they come up, but you'll have to take on learning PHP and mySQL to get this working.

You might start out here: http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/...tutorial4.html

giles

ok, thanks for your help

u2orange

Q: Is your data already stored in a database or is it static HTML? From the info on this thread, I can only assume it is static. Yeah?

If this is the case, why not use the the PHP version of the ASP file scripting object and iterate through each HTML file (ignoring tags with a regular expression) and match occurrences of the search string? This will eliminate the need for MySQL. If there is loads of data and records, then go for the MySQL option.

HTH
Mat.

Webforumz Staff

That's a pretty good idea u2orange and fairly simple to do assumming that there isn't much content...

But giles doesn't know any PHP, so it'll still be a fairly big step... There must be file searching engines in PHP available...

There are a few promising solutions here:

http://www.hotscripts.com/PHP/Script...nes/more2.html

Such as SmartFetch and TWB: Site Search

giles

Yeah, this is my biggest problem, seeing I have just started web design, I havnt learnt any coding yet (just simple actionscript) but its all good, Some1 has agreed to design the entire search thing for me for only $300

Anyway, thats for all the help