Making a database driven site - any tips?

[terryhan]

I'm thinking about making an online database covering the many (and I mean many) hacks of console games - Afro Mario, Blind Fu, etc...
I've done some work with PHP and MySQL; but I was wondering if there are any 'tips' or lessons that the HOL team have learnt from their experience.

Most importantly, I suppose - where do I start?

[CodyJarrett]

My general (techy and non-techy) tips would be:

- The job is always underestimated - think about the work that needs to be done, multiply it by ten and then double it.

- Help from others can be great, but be aware that initial excitement and offers of help can often turn into disinterest quickly and be disrupted by real life.

- Good database design at the start is obviously a good idea, but you'll be better prepared to design a database at the end of it all; once you've encountered unforseen situations and understand it better. It's a bit of a paradox, but prototyping might help.

- Try not to model the target domain to an insane degree. Modelling a domain more generically is usually better. If one case in a thousand differs from the rest, it would make more sense to mention this in a notes field rather than alter a database table to accommodate it.

- Use PNGs for screenshots, rather than gifs. Gifs have a political history and can cause some image problems (e.g. dots appearing).

- Try to make data accuracy a priority; too many websites present badly researched 'facts'. The challenge is to reduce these as much as possible. This is a large subject in itself...

- Be prepared for your work to be taken without permission and used elsewhere.

That's it for now, I'll add more if I think of them...

[woody57]

Paul AGA sent me the link to this site Html source { follow bottom links }

It not only contains an excellant tutorial section of " how too" it s explains in detail why some things work and some don't

Cody is quite right it took me nearly TWO Months to sort a working site with conected parts [ and I,m still tweaking ]


Jim however put forward a very important website point


Its more important that your site is usefull for the user's it's intended for, than " How pretty it looks "


Functionality from your index page first , cool graphics in small doses later

After who wants too wait even sixty seconds for all the little Gif & flash icon's to load onto a site before you can even browse it


Good luck , plan well and most importantly have fun html source Html source


Take note I still end up having to edit two or three times on posts , so if I can integrate a site you should sail through

[derSammler]

Originally Posted by CodyJarrett

- Use PNGs for screenshots, rather than gifs. Gifs have a political history and can cause some image problems (e.g. dots appearing).

Make sure that the image has 256 colours or less before saving as GIF. No dots will appear then... However, PNG is the better choice of course.

[CodyJarrett]

There are lots of HOL screens with this problem, as we used to use gifs and I didn't know that back then...

[terryhan]

Right, thanks for the tips guys. I've started work on it, but I'm sure it'll take a while.

Out of interest, do you know of anywhere that might be willing to host such a site? The free server I'm using at the moment can be pretty slow, and bandwith is... non existant.
Fine for testing, of course.

[RCK]

test is on your local hardware:
http://www.easyphp.org/

[Galaxy]

Originally Posted by WindowsKiller

Make sure that the image has 256 colours or less before saving as GIF. No dots will appear then... However, PNG is the better choice of course.

... except browser support is still not 100%, so you might lock some of your users out.

[Duke]

Even all Amiga browsers support PNG, and on all others Platforms there are uptodate Browsers available.

[terryhan]

Anyone know of a place I can ask for someone to look at some of my PHP?

I'm having trouble adding data to the database - namely, it's adding each record twice.