Where to begin. I need all the help I can get please.

jkphp

I have a website that was created by a PHP programmer from scratch. Not "canned" as they call it. It's been up and running since the first of the year. So far everything for the most part has run smoothly. However, I recently found out that I will need to either find another programmer or learn how to maintain my own site if a problem arises. The programmer I had just has too many other projects going on.

There are several problems I can see with just hiring another programmer for say monthly support maintenance. The first being the fact that my site was coded from scratch and after talking with a couple PHP programmers they said it may be difficult to find someone that can go in my database and understand how the previous programmer accomplished what he did and how it all works, as some of the scripts may not be obvious as to their function.

So I'm back to plan B, which would be for me to somehow learn enough PHP to at least have an understanding of how my own website works and be competent enough to know how to check on something or fix something should the need arises. A tall order for someone that looks at PHP as a foreign language at best.

I do know some basic's when it comes to html. I've done some stuff in Frontpage and the like but am in no way proficient in html.

I'm taking an online PHP course and to be honest it's very slow going. I'm a visual learner so I find my comprehension of all this is not very good. I think part of the problem is that I unlike Frontpage, I have no understanding on where you write the scripts, how you upload them, etc.

I think in order for me to really get a solid understanding of PHP I need to first have an understanding of how you work PHP. Meaning:

Do I need to download PHP onto my computer?
Do I need to have Apache or something similiar to write the script/codes in?
Do I need to have MySQL?
How do you get the code from point A to point B (meaning uploading to the server?)

My site currently is on a VPS server and MySQL and phpmyadmin is installed on there. I can go into my Cpanel and see my directories and files. But all the text files that contain the PHP, when I click "view" a Dreamweaver box comes up and says I need to purchase it. I did a trial of that at some point so that is why I would imagine.

I guess what I'm asking is if someone could explain to me what all I need to have on my computer based on what I told you above and also explain the steps one takes to actually upload PHP to their server and how it gets neatly placed into the database.

Is there anyone out there that has been in a similar situation where you found yourself needing to learn PHP to maintain your site in the future? Going into this I didn't expect to lose my programmer otherwise I would of started the learning process long ago. Now I almost wish my site was in just html as I could handle that. But the way my site works, html wouldn't be enough. It needs the PHP to run properly.

Thank you for any assistance anyone can offer or at least pointing me in the right direction. I think if I can learn how PHP is uploaded and how my Cpanel works in that respect as well as what I need to have installed on my own computer then learning PHP itself might be a little easier. I learn by doing as well and would like to have whatever I need in place so I can actually try writing some scripts and try uploading and being able to see the end result. Is that something that I will be able to do through my website now? Like set up a seperate folder and do some testing that way so it won't mess up my current database?

Thank you.

TenFold

You dont need to download anything if your server already has php. If you want to see if it does, make some directory with any name on your server, and make a text file on your desktop called index.php , and paste this text into it with notepad.....

<?php
echo "Hello $_SERVER[REMOTE_ADDR]";
?>

...Now, upload it to your server into that folder you made, and then go to it in the web browser , and if it only says "Hello YourIP" on the page (YourIP will be your ip when viewed) then you have php on your site and dont need to downoad anything. Now, here is a good tutorial for learning php. All you need to do to try the scripts you make is make a text file on your destkop, rename it to something ending with .php , and upload it to your server and go to it in your web browser. And if you ever want to lookup, say, a function, http://www.php.net is the place to go. Or, to find your function easier, just go to google and search "php function" where function will be replaced with the function you want to lookup, say, maybe "php echo" or something.

Houdini

You could set up XAMPP on your local machine and it will install an Apache webserver, PHP4 and PHP5, Perl, FileZilla FTP server and Mercury mailserver. Then get PHP Designer 2006 to edit and test your php. files on your local machine. Then you can easily follow along with any PHP code that you are reviewing or learning about from a tutorial. This is much better than writing an untested program in PHP no matter how simple then saving it and using an FTP client to upload it to your web hosts server and then testing it. You could also get WAMP which is not all the software as XAMPP but it installs quite easily without you having to have any knowledge of setting up an http server like Apache.
Get XAMPP HERE or if you wish then try WAMP HERE

jkphp

Tenfold,

Wow, that was easy to upload it to the server and create a new directory. Now I have it up there in the directory I named and it's index.php. The question I have is how to see it in the browser. Do I just type in my website address and then /testingground.index.php

Thanks.

TenFold

is the directory named "testingground" ? if it is, go to your site, then put "testingground/index.php" on the end and it should work....by the way, if it doesnt work, what is your websites address? i will get a link to it for you

jkphp

Thanks Houdini,

If I need that I'll be sure and check those out! Thanks a bunch.

jkphp

Tenfold,

I tried it: http://www.patternmart.com/testingground/index.php and I get page cannot be displayed.

TenFold

well, you know the file is called index.php, whats the folder called that its in?

jkphp

index.php is in the testingground folder. Is that what you mean?

jkphp

Should I instead have created a new directory in the same directory as all of my current webpages? What I did is create a new directory on it's own seperate from where my files are for my website and called it "testingground" and in there I uploaded the index.php

TenFold

Rename the script to echoip.php and upload it to your websites main directory, no folders.

jkphp

It worked! I see Hello and my IP address. Thank you so much, that shows me how to get script uploaded.

When your creating websites in PHP, do the scripts need to be uploaded in a certain order? Or for example if your creating a page on your website and on that page there is a table template, a contact box where users can type in their info and contact you. Would you create a folder for that peticular page and upload the scripts to that folder?

I guess I'm still at the stage where I'm not sure how the server recognizes "ok, this goes here on the site and this would go over here". Does that make sense?

Houdini

Well jkphp that all depends on how you are setting up your site. Right now it sounds like you have a working site. You could create another folder in the same directory as where you main content is currently right now. What you just did was put a file into your site root directory and then when you pointed your browser to http://www.patternmart.com/echoip.php that told the server to look in the root directory for a file named echoip.php and when it found it it displayed it. Suppose that now you created a new folder in the same directory where echoip.php is named test and you then copied the echoip.php into your new folder test and after doing this you typed into your address bar http://www.patternmart.com/test/echoip.php you would see that file displayed. This way you could have a site on your server where you test all your new scripts that the general public doesn't necessarily know about. If they come to your site normally the server will look for an index.php, index.php4, indexphp5, index.html, index.shtml or any index that the server has been directed to use in its configuration. That index page will then do whatever is necessary to use the site, and in a very simple site might be the only file on the server (basically a personal home page).

But as you are developing a site with PHP or any thing else you will find that using folders that contain specific files are easier to manage your site. There is really no order but it does help to make a plan and think of what content will be used on the site. PHP makes excellent use of included files so you will probably at least have one subfolder with your include files. You might also use CSS and you would want a folder just for your style sheets to at least have some kind of organization. As you learn more you will see a need for how your own site will actually look and what folders will be needed to do what you want the site to do.

jkphp

Thank you Houdini,

It's becoming a little clearer. I'm still a bit confused but I think it will click for me the more familiar I become.