building a simple catergory based cms

inverse

right my senario is that i want to build a simple cms, for indexing people (artists) basicly with the abiliy to add/del/edit and sort them into catergories and the ability to put them in order (choosen).

I am a n00b at php/mySQL and would greatly aprecate it if someone could help me through the development of this... or even just a few pointers...

thank you

Shrike

Here is a pointer: don't try to run before you can walk.

inverse

the reason for jumping in like this is like a learning curve... well i know basic's like arrays, loops etc, but nothing too fancy...

Shrike

Ok - take a piece of paper and write down each piece of functionality that you see as being necessary. Try to break the task down into separate pieces, and then try to tackle one of the tasks. A good place to start would be the database schema design.

I can see there being at least:

A login script
A registration script
A user details page
An admin page for sorting the users

Think about how these might interact together, how you might create reusable code (for example a database abstraction layer). Also think about how the user is best represented in the database to give maximum return when writing the code.

It's a really good idea to have everything straight in your head or on paper before writing one line of code.

inverse

thanks for that reply...

the admin section i want to include:

add/del/edit users
add/edit user info
sort users

with the user section consisting of:

add/edit information
change password

the information to be held by each user will be:

1 image
name
about
website

it's going to be a big task for me... i'll look into it more tomorrow.

kkobashi

May I make a suggestion?

Instead of trying to build a CMS as your first project, its often best to start with a smaller project and increase the level of difficulty.

Why not try to start off building smaller applications first. For example:

Hello, World (just to get your feet wet)
Guestbook (good for form and database)
Voting Booth (form, database, administration module)
Appointment Calendar (date/time, database, form, administration module)

Jumping in with a CMS as your first project will likely be a frustrating experience. If you don't believe me, check out all the PHP CMS scripts and look at the sheer size of the task. Nine times out of ten, people bail out of these sorts of projects because they become so much work. They eventually give up and use something like PostNuk e, Drupal, Xoops, etc. instead of reinventing the wheel.

inverse

Thank you for the reply, i should really do something like that, instead of jumping straight in.

kkobashi

Originally posted by inverse
Thank you for the reply, i should really do something like that, instead of jumping straight in.

Go to hotscripts.com and look at the PHP scripts posted there.

Download scripts of interest and study them to see how other people do it. Mind you, don't take the work as verbatim as some (if not most) are sheer crap.

What to look for? Algorithms, design patterns, design concepts - opportunities to save you time.

Along the way, as you are building your own applications, you have an opportunity to design classes that can be used to build a rich framework that you can leverage. Your time is worth something. You might as well create reusable code to make life easier down the road.

Good luck.