tryingtolearn Posted May 1, 2007 Share Posted May 1, 2007 Hi all Im trying to figure out the best approach to setting up a contact system that will: Allow a user (Signed in or not) to fill out a contact form With this type of set up - They select a department fill in a message block Send The technician associated with the department selected will have something along the lines of 1 New message in their admin area The technician responds An email is sent to the original poster saying - there is a response to you question Click here yada yada yada They click the link and go to the response They have the ability to respond - close - etc... The main question is What is the best way to handle the messages back and forth so the trail is displayed from original message to final conclusion including everything in between? Database? - Text file? or other ideas an how to go about doing it... Hope it makes sense - Thanks for any input. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john010117 Posted May 1, 2007 Share Posted May 1, 2007 Try this instead. If you want to custom code your site (like I do), then MySQL database(s) and PHP is the way to go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tryingtolearn Posted May 1, 2007 Author Share Posted May 1, 2007 Hi Thanks for the response. I am looking at building my own for a few reasons It will work the way I want rather than making something fit I can (Might know) how to customize as I go And last - to learn something new. My question for MYSQL would be how to set up the message storage, Would you just do 1 field for messages and keep updating that field for the responses back and forth or A seperate table for the messages so each individual message is stored and linked to the user through an ID of sorts. I dont expect a large amount of traffic as it is for a specialized site but you never know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john010117 Posted May 1, 2007 Share Posted May 1, 2007 You should have a table that contains the message ID, the actual message, and the user ID of the user that posted it. In another table, have the user list (user ID, username, etc.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tryingtolearn Posted May 1, 2007 Author Share Posted May 1, 2007 OK thanks I will try it out and see what I come up with I appreciate the time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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