small challenge anyone?

[chiprivers]

Would anybody like to design a small application for me as something to test your skills?

I will try and explain what I am requiring:

# there will be a mysql table containing a list of approx 40 records
# there will be a further table that will record events of items held in first table, this will consist of a start time/date and end time/date
# main page of app will show a timeline for each of 40 records across the page in like a horizontal bar chart, a line for each record, with a shaded area between the start and end times of any events for each record
# there should be a quick update form somewhere on this page to add a new event for any of the records

I hope that makes enough sense, anybody that would like to have ago at this and isn't sure whats required, please post your questions.

Many thanks.

[Jessica]

Post in the freelancers forum.

Remember, you get what you pay for. You want good code, hire a good coder. You want free code - you'll regret it.

[chiprivers]

[quote author=jesirose link=topic=121733.msg501048#msg501048 date=1168399462]
Post in the freelancers forum.

Remember, you get what you pay for. You want good code, hire a good coder. You want free code - you'll regret it.
[/quote]

This is just something I have been trying to work on myself, not for any commercial project but I have been unsuccessful so wondered if anybody had any ideas?!

[genericnumber1]

give us some code to help out with...

or were you just looking for suggestions of how to do something, if so what are you having trouble doing?

[Jessica]

You didn't ask for advice or ideas on how to do it, you asked if anyone would do it for you. I quote:

"Would anybody like to design a small application for me as something to test your skills?
I will try and explain what I am requiring:"

What is the code you had problems with? You said you were unsuccessful - we're more than happy to help fix errors.

[chiprivers]

I hadn't really got to the coding stage cos I struggling to get my head around away to approach this.

Starting with the main display, first of all I am going to have to find away to draw the horizontal bars. Though this would be a table row and I would use a <td> for each 15 minute period.  To get the start time on the left, I would query to get the earliest start time of any event.  The end time on the right of the display would be the current time.  I would then have to some how, one 15 minute block at a time, query to see if there was an event active for that time and for the current row that I was checking, then if so, shade the background of the <td>.  Loop this process over for each of the 40 records.

Can anybody suggest where to start coding?

[genericnumber1]

you could be lazy and use jpgraph? :D

http://www.aditus.nu/jpgraph/

I dont wanna think about how to do it with table cells... much less making it look pretty -shiver-

edit:
Oh, I figured you had thought of this, that's why I didn't mention it, but you could always use the gd library to make the graphs, though jpgraph is easier.

[chiprivers]

Never used gd library, is it easy? what does it do? any beginner tutorials anywhere?

[genericnumber1]

the gd library is a way to dynamically make images.. there are tutorials all over the place, including that one phpfreaks site, what was the url again?