Making Buttons from Code???

smp

Hi,

I am building a web site using Oracle and PHP. All of the information for the site is stored in the databasem including the navigation menu categories. The idea being that anyone can add info or new items to the menu without having to do any web design or programming...everything is done through the database.

My problem is that I need to be able to generate graphical buttons through some sort of code (database or on a CSS). When a new item is added in the database, it should also be added to the web page as a new button on the navigation bar. I was hoping someone might be able to give me some idea of the code that could be used to do this??

Thanks

seanpaulcail

it will just be text link though

Query database for $url and $name

function do_html_URL($url, $name)
{
// output URL as link and br
?>
<a href="<?=$url?>"><?=$name?></a><br>
<?
}

then call the function inthe appropriate table

do_html_URL($url, $name)

If you wanrt to create new cells you will have to create a loop that goes through the query and builds a table or a </td><td> after each call for do_html_URL($url, name).

Does this help?

smp

That is what I am using now...i sort of wanted to make some nice buttons...not just plain text, but I really have no idea how to do that??

I am not sure if you might know more about this?

Thanks

sneeze

Something like a <form> button?

Kerry_Kobashi

If you desire graphic buttons created on the fly, you can use the GD toolkit. Its one flaw is that it doesn't support GIF file format.

http://www.boutell.com/gd/

I'd create one standard button that can be reused across all menu items. Make it a fixed size to fit the largest length of text. Then slap some text on top of the button.

After all, I would think your goal is to get some sort of text on top of a button anyway.

ovisopa

Hello,
now few days I made a script for a pool, which must generate teh images dinamicly. So I can say is not hard to play with images 🙂
I taked this code from a php book, I think this is what you really need :

<?php
Header("Content-type: image/gif");
$string=implode($argv," ");
$im = imagecreatefromgif("images/button1.gif");
$orange = ImageColorAllocate($im, 220, 210, 60);
$px = (imagesx($im)-7.5*strlen($string))/2;
ImageString($im,3,$px,9,$string,$orange);
ImageGif($im);
ImageDestroy($im);
?>

This example would be called from a page with a tag like: <img src="button.php3?text"> The above
button.php3 script then takes this "text" string an overlays it on top of a base image which in this case is
"images/button1.gif" and outputs the resulting image. This is a very convenient way to avoid having to draw
new button images every time you want to change the text of a button. With this method they are
dynamically generated.

hope this helps you

see ya