General Php Questions To Help Me Get Started

[tomdelonge]

I have recently read two books on Php and MySql. I understand the basics, and can get simple things to work just fine. I just have a few questions, regarding a particular website I plan on making.

 

1st) How do you make dynamic subdomains? I want subdomains to be created automatically (or when I submit a form). Some web hosts offer unlimited subdomains, but each on has to be added via their User Interface. Is there only particular web hosts who allow subdomains to be created dynamically? Can anyone give me some specific ones? I don't want to use a dedicated server; I don't want to spend more than $10 or $15 per month. Also, what kind of functions do I need to use to accomplish this?

 

2nd) I understand some of the basic ideas of a simple cms, but how do I make things extremely customizable? Do I have forms on the backend that dynamically change php files? And how do I do that? For example, suppose I want the administrator to change the background color of the website. Say it's green and they want to change it to blue. Do I dynamically change the css file? How would I do that? Or is there some other means to accomplish this.

 

If you need a better explanation, just ask. Thanks for your help.

[ratcateme]

question 1:

that is controlled all on the server side and has nothing to do with PHP so you cant do anything there.

question 2:

you could change the css file you could also have a set of css files and have a theme manager that the admin picks the theme or the user picks the theme also for dynmaic content you can have links like this

index.php?pg=home

then have some php that uses $_GET['pg'] and displays the page that is requested in the url bar.

 

Scott.

[tomdelonge]

Thanks for the help. Yeah, I'll probably let the admin control the template then; That sounds good. With regards to the subdomain question: I would think you could create them dynamically, but even if you can't, that's okay. I'll have very few of them (maybe 30-50) and They'll only need to be started one at a time every few days. I don't understand subdomains that well. How do they work with the file system? How do you get your cms (A simple one I'll make) to interact with them? The filesystem thing screws me up. Maybe someone knows of a good tutorials? Or a simple explanation?