I have a client wishing to host with me, but my reseller account is Apache/Linux, and one of the two sites, a real-estate site, is currently using active server pages. Now aside from adding the header and footer to each page, (for which I really do not see any other includes, or active functions) and providing an interactive page for which she can enter her exclusive listings, or listings obtained directly by her company, and another page that hooks in to the national MLS database of listings for people to search from a page with in her site, are there any specific issues I would need to look our for? I will code the couple of interactive pages using PHP, to allow an easy interactive form page for her to input her company's listings, as well as scripts to have a form mail insert her address server side to protect them from spam and reducing personal information exposure such as full.names@realty.com, and use an easy image uploader within that listing page for those properties for sale, she is unhappy with her current provider since no access is granted to her directly, and her provider charges her for every little change requested, such as adding or changing keywords, any edits of pages, and her listing page is not even hosted with in her domain, but on the provider's domain, since his method of hosting inexpensively for business, practices the use of "add on domain" functions and no form of cPanel or Plesk is provided, so she cannot create databases, subdomains, email accounts, or get to the page's code to self edit, or any of the usual functions, most hosting accounts provide (I offer a fully loaded cPanel with all features and functions) and when I suggested she sign up for Google analytics so she can get a sense of her traffic flow, and other helpful information, she would need to pay him to insert the tracking script. To me this is unethical in the least and probably a disservice, although I am not sure just how Googlebot indexes sites hosted in this manner as add on domains, since a look-up resulted in 13 other various types of sites added to this single folder on her server, and the folder is her company name, as these were tagged on after the fact, and brought her hosting price for both sites to $20 a month, and her current site traffic on the realty site is something like 65-85 visits a MONTH, (the other selling seeds, gets approx 1800, and has increased by 187% since adding the basic SEO practices to her pages on this site three months ago) so I will be doing the SEO and integrating some script based opt-in forms for capturing information and sending matching listings to visitor's criteria automatically with a script form, to build in to a data base, and a spider that can auto search the national mls database for matches, and then generate an email consisting of those results (if any). So does anyone anticipate any issues known to be encountered when converting a site's pages from .ASP to .HTML? And any possible issues with the other functions I will be integrating in to some of the pages via PHP or JavaScripts to protect her personal info, get email addresses from those visitors, for creating email database and using auto-responders to thank them for their interest in obtaining matching listings or other information, as well as a form mail generator scheduled task for monthly newsletters as well? As we all know, it always sounds/looks better on paper LOL! Thank you for all feed back offered in the form of insight, for taking on this possibly daunting task and sparing me from common mistakes, as well as the ability to anticipate what may result in pages meant for a different environment under which to run. For those who turn on the lights for me, please know It is greatly appreciated! TSG!
Not usually in tha habit of bumping but I really need to draw from your experiences as to what i may be in for in this process, so here I am bumping in the hopes someone knowing, will respond! Thanks in advance for any insight offered! TSG!
If it were me I wouldn't really think of it in terms of converting from my point of view, but rather recreating what's already there using PHP. Are there a lot of pages, like hundreds of them?
thanks for the response, but truth be told, there aren't very many pages at all, the whole site consists of maybe 14 to 18 pages, and from what I have seen in them there really isn't very much "active" except the original coder used header and footer includes but aside from that don't even see anything attach or querying a database, and any non static functions are JavaScripts anyway, then as I started to say, truth be told I have not progressed very far in my php or I would have done just that as I understand they are very similar. so really my only apprehension was if there were tremendous syntax issues with the html on the pages a for instance I simply renamed the index.asp to index.html and the page displays fine (localhost server) and is complete, however it was the only page not having any includes, where as the rest of the site pages are just using the same header and footer, of course the other links won;t work until I change the extensions on those pages and rename the files, and add those headers and footers to each page, I think there is only ONE page, which is her "current listings page" that uses a form for her to update them that has active scripts running, but this is easily reproduced in PHP even at my skill level, but may not even be needed either since (which is why she is migrating to my hosting) her current hosting is using "add on domain" functions to host 13 other sites with in her folder, and she has NO access to her site what so ever, and when she asked about adding a keywords meta tag, his response was she supply the key words and he will add the tags for $100.00, so then when I offered to help with SEO and she asked for access to do her own SEO having been attending a technology class for the Internet, he sent her a link to submit her site to 200 search engines for $49.95 So she realized having learned she does not need him to do that, that he was taking advantage and decided to move, I just want to be sure I am doing her justice by being sur there were o unforeseen issues with such a conversion and since i am only gaining a client and not charging for the duplication, want to keep the recoding to a minimum! so with this additional information, what do you think? Thank for the response as well, it is always appreciated to be able to bounce something off someone else! TSG!
With so few pages just think of it as a new project where the owner supplies all the text and content. Download a copy of the site with WinHTTrack so you have a working offline HTML version, the redo the site in PHP. It should be very easy by the sound of it, you can have a header.php, a footer.php and put <?php include('header.php') ?> at the top of all your pages and the same for footer.php for the bottom. Or install a CMS like Joomla with the sh404 sef or Wordpress with SEO plugin then edit a template to look like the current site and recreate the pages. If you use Joomla it's easy to give the owner a login so they can edit their own pages, but not mess with the workings of the site. Unless you have someone much simpler in mind of course. Either way forgot about the asp, just do the WinHTTrack thing and pretend to yourself that the client brought you a HTML site on a CD and said please make this for me.
I will look in to the WinHTTrack, a this is new to me, however keep in mind I have enough FF add ons to allow me to copy "generated" source, as well as pull out a site's style sheets in their entirety, but I also have ftp access to her site server side, and have downloaded the entire site pages, images and folder structure, which makes things easily accessible, so maybe I will consider the php all the way concept, since it will serve as a lesson, however my objective right now is expediency, i want to do this in the manner that will take the least amount of time, and copying 14-18 headers and footers in a code editor that allows me to copy once and append or prefix all other open files with one click, seemed to be the least time consuming where as having limited PHP skills, will make debugging an arduous task and take allot more time than it might take you, also the am compounding her current layout from single main container to left sidebar elastic with headmast using dreamweaver to generate the initial layout css, so there are more places for text content on pages the original coder didn't seem to allow for, so there is lots of white space that is tied up because of how the layout was designed, using all tables, and referencing a style sheet for text attribute only, all other aspects of the layout is tables, and the side bar will also allow her to be able to pepper in some relevant affiliate links as well, to make some side income for her. Also consider when she comes over to the account i set her up with she will have full cPanel access to her site and with it recent upgrades, offers a really good wysiwyg editor for her to easily change things add content, as wll as many feature not previously available to her. So bottom line, based on very limited PHP skills, which is the quickest method do you think I can do this? With least number of problems, or issues? As for why don't i go for asp hosting? Well I current have a reseller account on a Linux server for shared hosting and my parent company only offers IIS-5 as a dedicated server only ( big bucks I am sure you are aware) and has not yet set up for IIS-5 shared hosting, plus even when it comes about (forecasted for about three months down the road) it would also double my current hosting expenses by doing this when it becomes avalable, for wich I current do not have enough hostied clients nor demand for IIS to warrant the expense. As for the design, there will be nothing to disapprove, it will lok feel and act just as it does now, why would you think that would change? I am curious as to the ratioanles of this comment for my lack of exposure to .net IIS server capabilties, aside from being able to alos serve html, and php with JavaScript, I really do not seer the need for such an entity to even exist, except to alow Microshit to sel ther .net Framwrok, and VB software for thousands of doallars do someone can achieve the results others do with open source, low or no cost server side languages! So I would appreciate your explaining to me what I might be missing with my current POV, that IS-5 has capabilties of that canot be achieved with HPH Perl, MySQL and the like! Thank you both for your continued feedback, I always learn something new with each response! TSG!
Well for me the fact you have no interesting in using or learning to use asp is reason enough to use PHP instead, if that's what you'd rather learn. It's always better to start as you mean to go on in them long run, it's also much easier to leanrn if you like what you're learning. I don't like asp of asp.net myself either so would either say I'm not interested in the work if the owner does like asp, or convert it if they don't care about/haven't a clue what runs their site in the first place. I'm not too fond of giving client cpanel access though to edit pages, unless they're really okay with using it and you don't think they'll screw anything up being in cpanel. I'm not sure what you mean about php and 14-18 copies of the header, you only need to make one header.php and one footer.php - they only contain standard html, nothing really to debug.
So you are saying the syntax used in .asp pages is workable with out edits in php? If that is the case then it definitely is the way to go, and I just have not had the time to get that far in PHP is all, I have a complete and working WAMPS set up as localhost on my xp home computer so testing or experimenting is easily do w/o other issues, my issues with learning .asp is simple I refuse to capitulate to ANYTHING from Microshit unless I HAVE to, such as my home computer operating system, don't really want to go through the frustrations of learning mac after 21 years on pc compatibles....although so much has been taken from our grasp, it is like how cars are built, there is little a do it yourselfers can do with cars since like 1978 where as before then I could strip down a motor and rebuild it if I wanted to and have, (of course machine working some parts to improve performance) but these days there are so many expensive and specific tools needed, that i can't even do a tune up on one. Well pc operating systems have gone the same route thanks to Bill Gates and Microshit since windows 98 and above there is little one can manipulate since the removed scripting abilities to modify how you OS responds in different environments, supposedly to make it more user friendly, but truth be told, I thought MS-Dos was more user friendly and flexible than any thing since window 95 or above. It holds true to for graphic programs too, I lost my old versions of photoshop deluxe and corel draw 5-7 which did everything the newest versions can as far as my needs go, but getting through them these days is practically cryptic in placement and utilization of functions and tools! Oh and as far as cPanel goes....I used my WHM to limit which function are available to a client until they ask if they can do this or that, then knowing about such a function would indicate, after a question or two, whether it is with in their understanding as to the damage they can do if improperly used, so i have like four levels of cpanel features that I attach to each individual based on how familiar they are with sever side functions. But I hear you man! Astroman, thanks for your continued attention to my thread, I do appreciate it, and will show it for what it's worth with my low post count LOL!
You can also use .htaccess to redirect asp to php pages. So if there is a page called contact.asp, .htaccess will redirect to contact.php. Good way to keep the existing links to the site.
asp syntax is not compatible with php syntax, but I'm saying to forget about asp, pretend it's not there at all. It's only less than 20 pages and you're only really dealing with HTML and CSS so PHP programming doesn't really come into it, the only php code you need for the most part is <?php include('header.php') ?> and <?php include('footer.php') ?>