Xml ( Quark Files) , Php, Mysql, Newspaper

[johnnyblaze1980]

hey need some help with a project im about to start planning, i work for a newspaper company that have 30 newspapers in total, which i place online, we use quark xpress files, basically right now everything is manually done, i want to setup this up so it's all automatically done or with minimum work involved.

my ideal setup would be to have a mysql server setup, and to export the quark files text of the headline, body, and any images into mysql, then have php setup to query this info from mysql and have it appear online. anyone have any kind of tutorial that maybe able to help me out with this, also anything on storing images in mysql, please help anyway you can, every bit of info will go along way in my planning.

note: this will also be done under a subscription type of site where when you goto the site you get so much of the newspaper free, then you can view the whole paper when subscribed, any help with this would be appreciated, i do know php fairly well, but haven't done anything of this nature. a big project for me as im the only web developer here to created this whole ecommerce/dynamic site, while having to keep the newspapers updated. i see a lot of overtime in my future.

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[superwormy]

I don't know about the exports... BUT...

The MySQL manual reccomends AGAINST storing images in MySQL. The native filesystem and webserver do a much better job of caching such large amounts of data.

I'm not sure on Quark, but I bet theres some way to export files to plain text or marked up text and parse them out later... or maybe you can even import data into Quark to build the Quark files, and use those original files to generate the MySQL database too...?

[tomwerner]

I agree with above (not storing images in MySQL db), I tried it on a site and the speed difference was noticeable. A better method is storing the path to the file stored somewhere in your webtree.

Concerning the actual project - I had a quick look on google and similar questions on other forums have concluded with a 'very difficult project' or similar, mainly because of the way Quark Express Files stores line lengths or something like that.

Anyway, my only idea was that doesn't the most recent version of Quark export to HTML? If so you could use a mysql db to handle subscriptions and then include() the html in a generic page like paper.php?date=DD-MM-YYYY&publication=???. You could then include the appropriate file, a naming scheme for the html could be 09-01-2004-pub_name.html. If you need some more clarification post back.