multiple questions, any mentors?

[iamcaper]

Hi All,

 

I've posted some minor questions thus far and you've been very helpful, as have been the resources on PHPFreaks, so thanks for that.

 

I'm building, what I think, is a complex, at least for me, web interface that will be closed to a small group of companies who are producing a television series.  Included will be an authorization system which will include access rights for each user; a gallery for multiple file types, such as TIF, MPG, PDF, MOV, PSD, and FLA; also included will be the ability of the user to leave comments on each file and upload of new files.  This seems to be way over my head at the moment but I've found tutorials and resources for each piece but I need to get everything working together. 

 

Ideally, I'd like this interface to be generic so that it can be used on subsquent series' we will have in the future.

 

Would anybody be able to provide some assistance/advice?

 

Thanks in advance.

[roopurt18]

You might try developing your application using one of the available PHP frameworks that supports plug-ins.  Then you can use existing plug-ins that offer the functionality you desire as well as develop any plug-ins of your own to fill in the gaps.  What you're looking to do is not that complicated but to start a project like that from scratch and try to follow all of the existing "best practices" for (X)HTML, Javascript, CSS, PHP, MySQL in addition to making it extensible and easy to maintain is daunting if you have a short time frame.

 

Otherwise, the specific components it sounds like you need to develop are:

 

User Panel - One super admin can create / modify / remove other users and their privileges

 

Project Manager - Here is where someone will create and manage projects, which would be a TV series in your case.  I recommend just categorizing them as a project because all you really want to do is attach documents to something.

 

File Server - You want to do more than just provide a link to download or view a document that has been uploaded.  You want to pass it through a mechanism that checks the user's privileges before serving it as well as track who viewed it and when.

 

Blog / Comment system - So that people can leave comments.

[iamcaper]

Good suggestion, thanks.

 

Are these frameworks fully customizable?  I'd like to keep the look of each section consistent.  It might not be possible to do that if I'm working with so many different file types.  For instance:

 

Initial login - Pretty easy to get desired look.

 

Main page - for user to decide what he/she wants to view.

 

Subsequent pages:

  Scripts - likely will be PDF files (can I view page by page in PHP)

  Storyboards - again, likely PDF files

  Designs - mash of TIF, JPG, and PSD files

  Layouts - likely going to be PSD or TIF files

  Backgrounds - likely going to be PSD files

  Leica - Quicktime movies (fine line between quality and size)

 

As you can see, there's a wide variety but will need option to add comments on each.  The client would like timecode included for the quicktimes but I know that's way beyond me to start.

[roopurt18]

You can typically use CSS or a custom template with most pre-written code, although I admit my experience in this area is limited.