Listing website

Hi all

I was wondering you could give me some tips on this. Basically I am designing a website in dreamweaver for a listing website which will be a bit like a gumtree website but with only one main listing.

I have had many quotes to create the website the lowest being £500 and highest being 3000. I have been doing a bit of market research in my university to see if it viable and then I was going to get a firm to create for me.

However from talking to one of the firms they said to create a database you can use a content management system called contribute to save you money on the quote that they gave me. Although I feel with time on my hands to have fun in the summer I feel I could complete this myself and design a pretty good website using many tutorials and stuff online.

The real thing that would hold me back is how do you create a search engine for your website and how do you create a registration page for people to use and how can you store these files securely. Is Mysql a program that has to be used.

I have about three pages done already and feel with around 2-4 months on my hands from June that I can actually do it and make leaflets and hand them out later on to boost number of people who visit my website. I also had approval from university for me to perhaps advertise as well but also have other ideas on how to advertise.

In addition to this one final question would be how do you place a visitor counter or registration counter on your website do you have to speak to the hosting company about this.

How do you create tabs like post, edit or delete thing and how do you notify registered users that someone has contacted them and also in regards to the listing date how do you change this so it date changes everyday?

Sorry for the essay people but I think I am in the right place for help.

I look forward to your reply.

Hi

I can't answer all your questions, but in terms of Contribute that you mentioned, I wouldn't go for that. I have to use that at work to update our website there and you can't access the code through it (or certainly not on the version I have). Stick with building it yourself as you have the time and the inclination, definitely have a go at hand-coding if you're not already doing it that way.

One thing I would say (as someone quite new to it all myself), is that you do have an awful lot of questions that you want answering and if you try and get them all answered at once you're going to have information overload. Just try tackling one thing at a time as you come to it, it'll make it easier for you and also easier for others on the forum to help you!

Good luck with it

MySQL is not a program, it's a database system. Probably the most commonly available on web site hosting facilities.

Unless you can get something that creates the code for you or you find ready to go scripts, you will need to get to grips with PHP or something similar to code the interface between your web pages and the database.

Most hosting facilities will offer something like phpMyAdmin which you can use to manage your database online.

There are also open source programs such as WordPress that you could probably tweak to meet your requirements.

A lot depends on where you see this project going.

Ye thanks for your advice.

This website will be moving forward Geoff no about that as I do it as a hobby as I say anyway.

Anyway in terms of My SQL I will check if it is integrated into 123 reg.co.uk hosting and domain website.

In regards to My SQl is the database that will store users details on the website?

So far I have developed the registration page although I need to find out how I link the submit button to another page. I have finished for today but I will use dreamweaver help to assist me with linking button to another page.

Next I will touch the other pages I have finished on with some new CSS.

Anyway thanks Vanessa for your advice on taking everything step by step always the best way and anyway my deadline for this hobby turned project is around August which is a fair amount of time.