Any ideas how to do approch this type of page?

[jakeman]

This has been giving me fits for days on which approach to take. I need to build a site where people can submit something like a url and short description. This will then appear on the page, with both a comment section and a rating tool below it. The website needs to go to the submitted url, capture a thumbnail of it too for display. It would be nice if the ratings were tied in to another part on the page that displayed the current top rated submission, all automatically. I am looking at custom building all this with PHP/SQl or maybe using a CMS? I am in a little over my head and need some suggestions please! I just dont want to put 20 hours in something then realize it would have been easier another way.

-Jake

[mack]

I think you may be able to acheive this using various opensource apps that are already in existance, and "shoe horn" the rest to hold it together.

The user submission process, this could be done using a simple php, perl, asp (or what ever scripting language you use) form with a function to store the data in a database. Mysql or Access depending on your preferance.

The page that will display the actual listng will simply query the databae you build based on user submissions. The image of the page could be done using a free application called html2png it creates a png image based on any html document, it is server side based and you can feed the url to the app during the submission process.

The entire app they you will build using the "snippets" of other scripts coucl in theory be built into an existing cms, this would make it easier to add or enable coments.

With reguard to use submission would tend to set it up like this. User adds a page, the info is stored in table1. Table 1 is not publicly available in any way. You are the only person who has access to table1 via an admin area. from within yur admin area you can accept or reject submissions. If rejected then simply remove the date from table1. If acceted move data from table1 to table2. Table 2 is the table your script will query to show information.

You may also want to add the html2png process to the second stage (after you accept a site) this will prevent you wasting system resources on a listing that you later reject.

I know this is not very detailed, I am just trying to give you a few ideas of how it could be done.

Mack.

[jakeman]

Wow, thanks for the thoughtful response. I think I am just going to have to roll up my sleeves and try to get some of these scripts to work and work with each other.

[mack]

Sometimes it can be very difficult working something like this out. It's not so much the coding that's the issue, it's understanding how it will all piece together.

If you get the planning right from the very start then it's just a case of building or finding your required pieces of the jig-saw.

What I try to do is work out a detailed idea of how my script will work using post it notes, write what each does and place them on a piece of paper. Arrange then with the links and relationships between the various scripts and components. Very often dong this will let you visualise how it will all piece together. It can also very often highlight potential problems before you start to write your code.

It's a lot easier to find the faults early on as opposed to mid way through your project when you end up having to backtrack to fix a bug.

Mack.