content management

for my news section

[modouno]

I am trying to create a content managment system for my news section. Basically I just want a simple way to add new stories, then have older stories move down the page, and after a set amount of new stories are ahead of it move to another page, which will be linked in "<<prev 1 2 3 4 next>>" dynamically as new stories are added. Kinda like a blog but much much more simple.

I really have no idea where to start. I know some php, but mostly just what i pick up from this forum (thanks)and tutorials. If someone could point me in the right direction, or enlighten me on where to start, suggest a good tutorial, suggest another way to go about this, etc.. Any info at all would really be great.

[jatar_k]

adding new stories would involve some type of submission form that would put the content into a database

this would require a database

the next/previous thing you are talking about is called pagination [google.com].

you could look at some open source packages that are out there and find one that works, or use one as a guide for what you want to develop

[cameraman]

My suggestion would be to locate a script that sort of does what you want and then modify the heck out of it until it does exactly what you want. Since you say 'kinda like a blog' you might start with a search for 'php blog script'. While looking through nests of scripts you may even find one that's very nearly what you want.

You can learn a lot of php by examining and modifying another's code - some of the author's techniques might not be ahem optimal but hopefully you'll start spotting shortcomings and fix them - another good learning opportunity.

Especially in the beginning make very small changes and test often so that if you break something it's not a large step backward and you remember exactly what you did. One of the things I do if I don't fully understand what a line of code is doing is to duplicate the line, comment the original, and make changes to the copy. If my change does what I want then I can delete the original line(s).

[modouno]

thanks for the tips. I thought about modding a blog script I have, and still might, but i really just need one or two of the hundreds of features it has, so I thought it would take much less time, and fit into my site better if i just coded from scratch,as this seems like it should be a simple enough process(i could be wrong). But I do like your ideas, Maybe with a simpler script. Any script suggestions would be helpful? I haven't found anything good (i have been looking for some time) jatar k you mentioned there are open souce scripts that do this, any you can recomend? If i could implement with an include that would be great.

Thanks for the pagination tip, it always helps to know the name of what your searching for.

Thanks again...

[jatar_k]

mainly I was thinking of a cms, I have never used one so I am not the best to recommend but you could look here

[cmsmatrix.org...]

[modouno]

thanks for the help all. if anyone else has my problem, i found this tutorial that has helped me out.

[phpfreaks.com...]