Will my design work?

[Tim356]

Hi guys,

Over the last 6 months I have been maintaining a horse classifieds site. The site was built by someone else (and the design is terrible), but I am in charge of adding new advertisments to it and other content when needed. It's a basic html site and over the last 6 months I must have updated it about 6-7 times and charged about $200 each time. I've told the owners that if it were created with a database backend, it would save them a lot of money as they could update the content themselves. They were really interested in this idea and want me to go ahead and create the new site. So here is how I plan for it to work:

The basic design is built and all looks the same. There will be a login for the admin.

When the admin wants to add new advertisements, they fill out a form. The form has set fields in it eg. Type of horse, age, sex, height, etc. It will also have 2 file uploaders, for images. Once the form is completed and submitted, the idea is this:
I have set templates already created, these templates will be opened and editted via php, and the field data inserted at certain points within the template code. The template will then be saved as a php file with a filename worked out from the form details (eg a spanish colt will get the filename adSC001.php, with the next spanish colt getting adSC002.php etc). The database table that contains the listings will then be updated with the new page link and title.

I may even make it so that people wanting to place ads can fill in the form themselves, with the admin approving their ads after payment is received and the ad is approved by them.

So, with all the knowledge thrown around in this forum, can you guys have a think about what I have just explained above and tell me if there is a better way of doing this? Or if you can see any problems with it working this way?

Also, is it even possible to do it this way? I mean, I know I can edit the contents of a file using php, but can I insert in certain areas of a file as I have explained?

[Webforumz Staff]

Yes it's quite possible to do it that way, but have you considered also editing the files? You'll have to make sure there are obvious markers that you can edit the file by as well.

Also, I think it might be a better idea to have a more comfortable file naming structure, both for you, your visitors and the search engines. Use real words in the filenames, so instead of adSC001.php try spanish-colt-001.php - that should help you out a lot.

[Tim356]

Thanks Karl, knew I could count on your advice.

I hadn't thought of editting the files, no. But I could include before and after markers around the data, so that shouldn't be a problem - but thanks for bringing it up now before it was too late.

The only reason why I was going for the names of files that I suggested is because they are currently like that, and for some reason the owner likes it that way (even though they never have to deal with the files for any reason). But I guess this will be a completely new version, so I think I will follow your suggestion.

Thanks again for the advice - I'll no doubt be posting again once I really get started with it.

[Webforumz Staff]

It could of course, also be easier to have the content in a database and avoid using files altogether... that's probably what I'd do.

[Tim356]

So how would I have each advertisment on it's own page?