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I have been asked to make a website...
http://www.x404.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1580		 Page 1 of 2
Author:  pg2114 [ Wed Jul 01, 2009 10:10 pm ]
Post subject:  I have been asked to make a website...
Luckily, this website should be a very simple one. Its purpose is to communicate the town's weather to certain people, without the need for BBC Weather or anything.

I just want to be able to update it manually when necessary to give the current conditions, temperature and comments. It doesn't need to be hugely secure, so I was thinking of simply having a "View" page for the public and an "Edit" page for myself to change.

I have scripted in ASP Classic before, but I'm a bit rusty now, and I'm not sure that's the best language to use.

Any pointers would be great, thanks.

Peter.
Author:  Nick [ Wed Jul 01, 2009 11:09 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: I have been asked to make a website...
You just want literally two pages?

What are you doing hosting wise? Linux I assume? In which case you can either leave the edit page completely unsecured, or use a .htaccess file to protect it with a username/password.

What sort of stuff are you going to include? Just the current weather, a log of previous whether, forecasts etc??

If you are just going to have one set of data (ie just the current weather) then I would use a text file. Then the admin page would have a form which is processed in PHP. The output of which would be a text file containing the data, which over-writes the existing file. PHP pulls the data out of that file and puts it into the html. This would be a ten minute job for the whole site lol.

If you are going to be keeping historical data etc I would use MySQL so you can query it.
Author:  JJW009 [ Wed Jul 01, 2009 11:23 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: I have been asked to make a website...
Is this supposed to be up to date news? If so, it's going to be a real pain to administer. Every time the weather changes, you'll need to type something up. That would be OK in some countries, but the one thing Britain is well known for is the changing weather.

I'm totally bemused why anyone would want such a site. I would simply post a link to an existing site which is already updated. For example, my preferred weather page is:

http://www.metcheck.com/V40/UK/FREE/7da ... orthampton

Post link. Job done. :|
Author:  Nick [ Wed Jul 01, 2009 11:38 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: I have been asked to make a website...
JJW009 wrote:
I'm totally bemused why anyone would want such a site


Same here. As you say, there are countless sites that offer a far more accurate, regularly updated service. :?

I'm sure there must be a reason. :)
Author:  Linux_User [ Wed Jul 01, 2009 11:48 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: I have been asked to make a website...
Joomla! FTW.
Author:  pg2114 [ Thu Jul 02, 2009 7:28 am ]
Post subject:  Re: I have been asked to make a website...
I know it seems a little strange, but they only need to know the weather at the same time each day, so I don't actually need to make constant updates.

I think it's probably easiest to use Nick's method of a text file, but I may even just edit and upload this file myself.

Thanks,

Peter.
Author:  pg2114 [ Thu Jul 02, 2009 9:46 am ]
Post subject:  Re: I have been asked to make a website...
I had a quick go and have got it up and running :)

Clicky

It's not pretty, but it works beautifully. I even made a very insecure login facility to change it using a form, which then updated the text file, as per Nick's solution.

Thanks for the pointers,

Peter.
Author:  saspro [ Thu Jul 02, 2009 10:52 am ]
Post subject:  Re: I have been asked to make a website...
Link's broken
Author:  pg2114 [ Thu Jul 02, 2009 10:54 am ]
Post subject:  Re: I have been asked to make a website...
saspro wrote:
Link's broken

I have updated the nameservers, so it will take a few hours for it to work.

Peter.
Author:  pg2114 [ Thu Jul 02, 2009 12:28 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: I have been asked to make a website...
The site has been working at my end for five hours now, however no others users are able to access it.

Does it usually take this long?

Thanks,

Peter.
Author:  HeatherKay [ Thu Jul 02, 2009 12:36 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: I have been asked to make a website...
Well, it says it's very hot and humid in Preston, via michaelfish.com.

Is that right?

You might suggest other visitors empty their browser caches. Equally, some ISPs cache stuff, and it can take a while for that to clear.
Author:  pg2114 [ Thu Jul 02, 2009 12:39 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: I have been asked to make a website...
HeatherKay wrote:
Well, it says it's very hot and humid in Preston, via michaelfish.com.

Is that right?

That's what the site is meant to display, yes :D

I can't believe I managed to script that website in PHP within a couple of hours. I have my little admin panel where I can change the data, and it'll even change the top image!

*Does a little dance*

Peter.
Author:  John_Vella [ Thu Jul 02, 2009 2:39 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: I have been asked to make a website...
The only suggestion I would make is that if it's only you who's going to edit the page I would lose the "update" link.

I clicked on it, thinking that the page would update, but obviously it didn't.

That might confuse some people.
Author:  pg2114 [ Thu Jul 02, 2009 9:47 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: I have been asked to make a website...
John_Vella wrote:
The only suggestion I would make is that if it's only you who's going to edit the page I would lose the "update" link.

Good point, John. I may change the link to "Edit data", which should be a more obvious name.

I'm pretty pleased with it considering it took two hours from start-to-finish, with no previous knowledge of PHP. It isn't pretty, but it does the job it's meant to do.

Peter.
Author:  JJW009 [ Thu Jul 02, 2009 11:41 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: I have been asked to make a website...
pg2114 wrote:
I'm pretty pleased with it considering it took two hours from start-to-finish, with no previous knowledge of PHP. It isn't pretty, but it does the job it's meant to do.


I disagree.

I think it is quite pretty :D

Of course, I can't see your PHP and I wouldn't be qualified to comment on it anyway - but the page looks really nice.
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