Best suggestion for..: user registration / interaction, framework maybe but not?

[mattkenefick]

I'm building an interaction site that works similar to like Match.com (maybe?). I've never been there but I think it'd work where a bunch of people sign up, people post a profile, and you can't directly contact them but you can, through the system, create an interaction.

 

It's not a social website, its for selling things between users but keeping conversation out of it so that you use the service. Anyway, it's a little off-regular so a standard CMS isn't really going to plug-in.

 

I'm looking for something that will handle things like User Management, Session Handling, and all the security aspects of a User Registration / Login / Usability. The core functionality of E-Commerce and bidding and such I can handle.

 

Also, I don't know if a template system would work well for this? Because there's a lot of variables like, loading data, and processes like Bidding on an Item, and such..

 

A similar site is  http://www.uship.com . The point of that site is people sign up that want to send things, shipping companies sign up to bid on jobs. The customer posts something they need shipped and the companies bid on their job.

 

 

Thats basically exactly what I need to do. So I need to have something that'll handle the security and whatnot of User sign-up, but it has to function like the UShip site and I don't know that templates are capable of that?

 

 

Kind of not sure what way to go here. I understand the usage of templates for things like blogs, news sites, or sites with downloads and image galleries. But this site isn't really any of those.

[Buyocat]

First you can definitely use templates for this.  Templates just provide a way to concentrate your presentation logic and maintain it separately from your business logic.  You may choose not to cache templates (thus having them recompiled on each request) due to their dynamic nature.

 

There are a number of frameworks available in PHP which may fit your needs.  We really should have a sticky somewhere with a list, but I think some standouts are Cake PHP, Symfony, and Solar, at least from my perspective.  They all offer roughly the same thing so try them all out and find the one which best fits your style.  Bear in mind that the thing with these frameworks is they force a certain organization on you, so if you don't like you'll spend more time undoing their work than doing your own.  This is all to say pick wisely.