php help

lisa33

hey everyone I am very very new to php and I cant grasp it at all. I am going to apologize now for the stupid questions... I am using dreamweaver mx2004 which is compatable with php correct? So Im working on a site that needs a voting poll and the voting poll needs to automatically place the top three winners in front. Ive been googling php all night now and I cant get past the introduction because one says "Before you can work with php its a good idea you install php on your computer if you havent installed it yet" another says "If your server supports php then you do not need to do anything. Just create your .php files, put them in your web directory and the server will automatically parse them for you. There is no need to compile anything nor do you need to install any extra tools." Now I called the hosting company (register.com) and they said they support php. Does this mean that when making a webpage in dreamweaver I would open up a new php pg in the column create new? Then when making a vote button it will automatically tally up the votes when clicked on? Or do I still need to install php first? Any information or links would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!!

ManWithNoName

I don't know anything about DMX2k4. I don’t know much about PHP either, however, I think the answer to your question (which by the way was a pain extracting; line-breaks please) is relative to where you are going to run your php-files; local or remote.

If you are going to work with your files on your local computer then you would most likely need to install php (and a, what-you-call-them, “webserver software” such as Apache. If you do not have one that is).

If you are going to work with your files online, through your hosting company server, then you will not need to install php.

PS. No questions are stupid. They are just badly disproportionate.

ifty

Yes, if you wish to test and debug locally you may want to installing php on your computer (wish is a task in itself). I use uniformserver3.x to do my install for php and mysql which I use for database work. It is easy to install and setup.

Now if you just want to write php and test on remote website that already has php support then just open up your favorite editor and start writting. Friend of mine wrote a complete php script and fully functional site in dreamweaver, yes dreamweaver is compatible with php. However for PHP you may want to get an even more advanced editor built around php so you can debug and check syntax easier.

Houdini

For you to tally up votes from a Poll you would in addition to PHP also need a file system of some sort a database like MySQL to store results on would be the most likely one. Although you can write PHP with Dreamweaver I would suggest that you also have PHP Designer (as the name says it is for PHP) which is free just google for it. You might really want to place a webserver on your local PC where you can write and debug PHP code. I would suggest XAMPP which would place Apache webserver PHP MySQL and Perl and more on your home PC.

Using a real server will speed up your coding and learning how to properly write code that works the way you want it to work. PHP is easy to learn and quite powerful and help in its use is always here on this site in these forums.

lisa33

I have downloaded php designer and wamp. Is wamp considered my database or do i still need to download mysql? Also when Im finished making the poll in php designer can i bring it over to dreamweaver to design it?

Houdini

WAMP is an installer package and it install Apache MySQL and PHP so you now have a database. I believe WAMP also has phpMyAdmin where you can create databases and tables, there should be a control panel for WAMP just look for a link to phpMyAdmin in the WAMP control Panel.

You can view your Poll either in PHP Designer or Dreamweaver, they are both editors. If PHP Designer is properly set up you can view your PHP pages right in the editor, you just need to set it up by letting PHP Designer know where the php.exe file is probably in the c:\Program Files\WAMP\php folder just do a search for php.exe I do not use Dreamweaver but I think you can also view your PHP pages with it.