j05hr Posted September 11, 2009 Share Posted September 11, 2009 I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this but it is a question and looking for suggestions. I'm building a website for an estate agent which is all well and fine. I'v never really used PHP apart from a few pointless tutorials. Now for this site I would need a CMS. I always hear people talking about Joomla (and it's equivalents) which I've never used. The only CMS i've ever made is from the lynda.com (PHP With MySQL Essential Training.) This is all hand conded so I was wondering would a novice like me be able to use this and just change all the CSS to the equivalent in my site? Also, an estate agent will need a search filter to find properties they're looking for. So any tutorials or advice on the best way to implement this will be greatly appreciated. Thanks for all the help, Josh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zane Posted September 11, 2009 Share Posted September 11, 2009 Theoretically, yes.. But realistically no. Joomla isn't the same as a self-paced video tutorial. Yes you can change all the CSS and HTML to suit your needs but there are quite a few files to be handled here.. I'm no Joomla/Drupal/phpNuke connoisseur/expert and I didn't learn PHP yesterday either. But you won't see me taking those programs apart anytime soon..unless there's good money involved. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j05hr Posted September 11, 2009 Author Share Posted September 11, 2009 So if you had to make an estate agent website, how would you go about doing the CMS? Basically, I'm a studen that can't find any work at the moment so I'm trying to make a very high end portfolio and want to include PHP as I'm generally interested in it and it will put into much better positions getting jobs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zane Posted September 11, 2009 Share Posted September 11, 2009 do it one module at a time. If this is for a portfolio of YOURs I definitely would keep away from commercial CMSs. Don't even think about the word "CMS." Look at other real estate websites and see what they do and don't do. What do you want yours to do? What don't you want? One thing at a time. Your portfolio won't look so appealing (for PHP/Web Design, etc) if you have a footer saying it was made by another company Hint: the login system is usually a good place to start. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j05hr Posted September 11, 2009 Author Share Posted September 11, 2009 Yeah that's what I thought but don't loads of actual web design companies use commercial CMS's? How do you go about seeing what other real estate companies do if you can't look at their back end of the site? I want it to be able for the user to login and update the houses when a new one comes on the marker or take an old one off that has been sold. I learnt how to do a login system on the lynda.com tutorial however as a novice I don't really have a clue how secure that is. So basically yeah I'm just looking for guidance on the best way to go about this is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zq29 Posted September 11, 2009 Share Posted September 11, 2009 Yeah that's what I thought but don't loads of actual web design companies use commercial CMS's? I doubt it, my company has our own custom CMS that we tailor to our clients, and other companies work that I have seen has always been custom too. Although, if you're charging peanuts you can probably get away with re-branding a Joomla (or similar) install, as long as this is disclosed to the client up front. Like zanus, I wouldn't touch something like Joomla with a barge pole unless we're talking five figures minimum - Its not worth the hassle, frustration and heartache to shoe-horn the required functionality into it. It would be quicker and easier to build from scratch. To be honest, I can't imagine that a CMS built from a tutorial will be much good either. You need to map out your requirements and construct your plans based on them, module by module. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j05hr Posted September 11, 2009 Author Share Posted September 11, 2009 That's surpised me quite a bit because you always see people asking questions on forums about "i got a joomla template blah blah" but I never see anyone talking about custom built ones. That's why I thought loads of people used them professionally. So you think I should never bother to download them and just learn from scratch how to custom build? What would be the best way to learn if you don't rate tutorials? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zane Posted September 11, 2009 Share Posted September 11, 2009 That's surpised me quite a bit because .... I never see anyone talking about custom built ones. So you think I should never bother to download them and just learn from scratch how to custom build? What would be the best way to learn if you don't rate tutorials? Because if someone is asking about a custom built CMS then 8 or 9 times out of 10, they are talking about "tracing" it out from Joomla or Drupal or something else. That's why I said you have to get the word "CMS" out of your head. Yes, it is a content management system, but to you...it is really a bunch of scripts doing what you want it to do. one script after another, one database and one table at a time. If you do it correctly, the questions that you ask in a forum about your project will NEVER include the word CMS and ONLY the problem that is at hand and that is why I moved this thread to Miscellaneous. For instance...your problem may have something to do with extracting a certain row from a certain field with the certain variables...etc,etc.. using the $_GET variables, XSS injection jQuery integration the list could go on. it's just like building..... a building Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j05hr Posted September 11, 2009 Author Share Posted September 11, 2009 But that's my point and why I'm here, to find out the best way going about it. So I've got don't use CMS's and custom built tutorials arn't any good. So where do you advise to learn? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j05hr Posted November 9, 2009 Author Share Posted November 9, 2009 It's been a long time, it's built so the user can create read update and delete. I'm now at the stage where I need to build the search page for it. I'm basing my site on this so something similar to this http://www.andrewward.co.uk/search.htm Also, I'm going to be putting it online in a few days, would it be ok to give someone a username and password to login and see if it's ok? Thanks, Josh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maq Posted November 9, 2009 Share Posted November 9, 2009 Also, I'm going to be putting it online in a few days, would it be ok to give someone a username and password to login and see if it's ok? Sure, if you post in Beta Test Your Stuff section. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j05hr Posted November 9, 2009 Author Share Posted November 9, 2009 Thanks for that, I will do that when it's online, is there any ides for the search feature? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maq Posted November 9, 2009 Share Posted November 9, 2009 Thanks for that, I will do that when it's online, is there any ides for the search feature? There is a decent tutorial that, for the most part, can be applied to your desired search feature. http://www.phpfreaks.com/tutorial/simple-sql-search Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j05hr Posted November 9, 2009 Author Share Posted November 9, 2009 That looks really good thanks, the only thing I could see that I additionally want it to do is, if you search for a property between a price bracket, not just one specific price, would that be easy to implement? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maq Posted November 9, 2009 Share Posted November 9, 2009 MySQL has comparison operators you can use to filter ranges: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/comparison-operators.html#operator_between Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonnoTheDev Posted November 10, 2009 Share Posted November 10, 2009 Yeah that's what I thought but don't loads of actual web design companies use commercial CMS's? Absolutely no way. The only time I see these in action are when some of our clients who are web hosting companies decide to offer web development as a service. They have limited knowledge of development so install these off-the-shelf products to construct websites. The issue comes when their clients require functionality that the CMS does not offer. Another reason not to use these is that if a security flaw is found and you have 100 clients websites working from the same system then it probably wont take long before they are all compromised. Doesn't take a genius to work out that a site has been constructed from a commercial CMS. In terms of learning I would take your time and don't rush into it. A good set of reference books is always a good start. Using Internet tutorials is fine as long as you stick to a limited number of sources. There is so much crap out there demonstarting bad habbits and so many developers have different styles of coding so it can become confusing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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