Image search box

[rajeevthomas]

Hi everyone...

I just came across http://www.phpfreaks.com/tutorial/simple-sql-search . And it works for me. But I am making a gallery. If I have a database with images, keywords, captions, how do I create a search box to search for images? Are there any tutorials? is it possible to make changes to this tutorial to bring up just images? Any directions will help... 

[joel24]

are your images stored as files or as binary data in the database?

you can use a similar search which searches through the image data in the database, i.e. keywords, tags, descriptions regarding the images.

[rajeevthomas]

are your images stored as files or as binary data in the database?

you can use a similar search which searches through the image data in the database, i.e. keywords, tags, descriptions regarding the images.

 

Mmmm..hope I am saying this right... in the database there are only image information. And the php file pulls the image based on the information. When I look at my database I only see image info not direct links to them. I hope that answers to your question...how do we do the search you have mentioned?

[joel24]

You should have an image filename stored in the database, in the same row that has the image descriptions, image name, image title and other details.

Then when a user searches for a image, you have a situation like so:

 

1. Set up database so rows store imagename, image description, image title and most importantly FILENAME.

2. You create a HTML search page which posts to a PHP page, with search box input named "imageSearch"

3. The PHP page is set up something like so

if (isset($_POST['imageSearch']))
{
$searchTerm = $_POST['imageSearch'];

$sql = @mysql_query("SELECT imageTitle, description, filename FROM images WHERE imageTitle LIKE '%$searchTerm%' OR description LIKE '%$searchTerm'");

while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($sql))
{
echo "<p><h1>{$row['imageTitle']}</h1><br/>
{$row['description']}<br/>
<img src='imagesFolder/{$row['filename']' />
</p>"
}
}

 

You can modify it if you want it to return thumbnails, links to the photos etc. That is the basic fundamentals though, you would be able to adapt the PHP Freaks tutorial you mentioned earlier to suit your needs also.

[rajeevthomas]

You should have an image filename stored in the database, in the same row that has the image descriptions, image name, image title and other details.

Then when a user searches for a image, you have a situation like so:

 

1. Set up database so rows store imagename, image description, image title and most importantly FILENAME.

2. You create a HTML search page which posts to a PHP page, with search box input named "imageSearch"

3. The PHP page is set up something like so

if (isset($_POST['imageSearch']))
{
$searchTerm = $_POST['imageSearch'];

$sql = @mysql_query("SELECT imageTitle, description, filename FROM images WHERE imageTitle LIKE '%$searchTerm%' OR description LIKE '%$searchTerm'");

while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($sql))
{
echo "<p><h1>{$row['imageTitle']}</h1><br/>
{$row['description']}<br/>
<img src='imagesFolder/{$row['filename']' />
</p>"
}
}

 

You can modify it if you want it to return thumbnails, links to the photos etc. That is the basic fundamentals though, you would be able to adapt the PHP Freaks tutorial you mentioned earlier to suit your needs also.

 

Joel24 thank you very much..! From what you said I am very interested to know how I can modify it to bring links to the photos or photos? Can you gimme some directions Joel? 

[joel24]

you'll have to play around with it yourself, this is the basic fundamentals though you'll need to modify it all to fit your database setup etc.

if (isset($_POST['imageSearch']))
{
$searchTerm = $_POST['imageSearch'];

$sql = @mysql_query("SELECT imageTitle, description, filename FROM images WHERE imageTitle LIKE '%$searchTerm%' OR description LIKE '%$searchTerm%'");

while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($sql))
{
echo "<p><a href='imagesLocation/{$row['imageLocation']}'>{$row['imageTitle']}</a></p>";
}
}

[rajeevthomas]

you'll have to play around with it yourself, this is the basic fundamentals though you'll need to modify it all to fit your database setup etc.

if (isset($_POST['imageSearch']))
{
$searchTerm = $_POST['imageSearch'];

$sql = @mysql_query("SELECT imageTitle, description, filename FROM images WHERE imageTitle LIKE '%$searchTerm%' OR description LIKE '%$searchTerm%'");

while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($sql))
{
echo "<p><a href='imagesLocation/{$row['imageLocation']}'>{$row['imageTitle']}</a></p>";
}
}

 

Thank you for your help and time... you are so kind...