Forum Moderators: coopster
I've been looking at the forums for a while now and I'm glad I've finally joined.
My questions is: is there a pre-scripted open source project which is based on PHP & SQL that operates like a review site where people can submit things into new categories and put their opinions on products? Similar to something like epinions.com
I think most of the best scripts of every kind are custom jobs, epinions being a perfect example.
>> I looked and looked a few months back
I think I remember that, I looked around at that point too and didn't really find much.
My advice for finding scripts for various systems:
1. Decide what portions of your idea are critical and which can wait
2. try and find something that does as many of those critical items as you can
3. try to find other packages that complete the critical issues
4. Get it running and working then add on and tweak from there
there just isn't that much good distributed software, custom is always better
I'm going to pick up a book in whatever language the coder recommends the site will be coded in. I know you could be biased, but what would you recommend for a professional, but informal, site? I like PHP but for reviews I've never liked the long links to items e.g.?action=reply&forum=88&discussion=10386
Could it be coded to reflect this sort of structure?:
.com/[category]/[reviewID]
e.g.
.com/3/343/
if you are using apache on *nix for your site then php is your best bet
>> I've never liked the long links to items
that is not a feature of the language, that is the foolishness of the programmer. Good call on not wanting that even before you start. Scripts can be designed to not use this nasty method or you can also use apache's mod_rewrite [webmasterworld.com]
I'm going to pick up a book in whatever language the coder recommends the site will be coded in. I know you could be biased, but what would you recommend for a professional, but informal, site? I like PHP but for reviews I've never liked the long links to items e.g.?action=reply&forum=88&discussion=10386Could it be coded to reflect this sort of structure?:
.com/[category]/[reviewID]
e.g.
.com/3/343/
You can do that in Apache. There's probably a way to do that with other servers as well, but I don't know enough to say that for sure.
In other words, it most likely doesn't matter whether the site is in PHP, ASP or anything else, so long as your developer knows how to do this.
Epinions and other similar sites are not simple affairs, and they tend to need systems built in to reward participants and discourage fraud. They also tend to pay their members, and need a lot of hands-on supervision for libel, self-promotion from manufacturers, and other abuse. I remember Ciao claimed it paid out around £30000 to its members one year, to give you an idea of what might be involved.
These message boards has a good aura about them :)
