PHP, HTML (school project)

Hi guys, i have been tasked to do this project. i would like to seek suggestion and recommendation on how should i code it. For example give me a scenario of how is it going to work and what type of company should actually use it?

Sorry, im new to coding and its just my school work so pls guide me along.

Below are the project descriptions. Bascially using php and html only with database.

Title : Online Fault Reporting and Tracking System
Desc : The website must be professionally designed. To allow visitors to: -view and search the website for general information and announcements To allow user to: -report a fault (location,fault type,description,etc) via web-based form -upload photo related to a fault -list previously submitted faults -receive email notification -view searchable knowledge base To allow support personnel to: -view assigned fault -view and update status/information of assigned fault (initial findings, action taken, etc) -search all faults by username, fault type, description, solution, date, etc -receive email notification To allow administrator to: -view and assign priority to a fault report -assign fault to a particular support personnel view and edit a fault report -view built-in reports for keeping track of problems, users and support personnel -upload news and annoucements on website via online form -view,edit and delete users -manage knowledge base

 

It's better if you force yourself to learn and do it by yourself without anyone helping you. I've learnt by myself and now have a very well paying job.

 

hi Peon.
first you need to split your work/task as modules. every project has admin and front end , So the admin side you need to work php sessions (for login and log out). front side basic forms like 1. searching(database searching) 2. report a fault
, these are modules, so you need to have knowledge in mysql search query, form validation, html forms, php

 

I would recommend you to use a good php framework, such as code igniter.

 

codeigniter is good for newbie. but not recomended for large project. lets try Symfony or Zend

 

The OP is a newbie.
I'm no student and can program but can't justify cost of paying for tools like Zend - so can't believe anybody would buy this for a school project

This site has some great training videos.
You need to pay for full courses - but they give away about 20 of the first lessons for free

 

first i say sorry to you. but i said not about the tools. but the framework. sorry my bad.
i mean symfony2 and zend framework.

 

hi guys thanks for the replies. i got the basic program to code this project but i would like u guys to give some scenarios on project like who are the users and so on, i couldnt think of a good one because i am not familiar with the coding world yet. So first, i need to have some example on who are going to use it and how are they going to use it.

Thanks for your replies

 

please do it yourself but for help and helping material all type you can find from http://phproots.com i think you don't have to go anywhere.

 

Hi, If you're new and not a coder you won't be able to take this project on yourself as a do-it-yourself project and have it done effectively. It sounds like you are asking for a large-scale system to track , database storage, recall, and display. You will also most likely want to track the info entered to user-names (who it is that signed in /logged in) which will lead to personal member profile pages, database member info etc. You will need image and file uploading systems for the images you're referring to and file upload FTP sections or PHP image/file uploaders. This will be a system that will probably stay in place once designed for the school system, and must be designed with open-ended structure to be adapated/expanded upon in future without discarding and creating an entire new system. Those appear to be your basic project requirements and keeping it open-ended for future expansion would be a must for a school system over the next 5 to 20 years.

For the basics I would estimate your project cost to be around $10,000 to $20,000. If its done right the first time, with full-interface system to utilize the system by back-end/front-end faculty that wouldn't have the extensive PHP knowledge. So this system is being made for people to interact/upload/update and expand upon with no coding,database or PHP high-end knowledge. That alone is a project add-on. Making projects for PHP experts that then plug-in and customize to their project, or making it complete for users with no knowledge , yet full interactivity capability ..are two different worlds.

Approaching this in your own with no scripting knowledge would be a good tutor project , quite a first crash course in PHP and web design. This project would take a newbie approximately 3 years , start to finish with it ending up in professional use-ability.

 

I have 10 years experience and knowledge based web development and web technology. This project is heavy from an enterprise point of view. It all depends on the budget, time and skills required, availability and man power. You have one of the following options:

1-Custom coding and bespoke solution. which has one of two:

a- Coding using procedural php which will create a compact and good performance script but it is bad for the future because procedural coding always produces unmanageable code.
b- Going object oriented which also has two options as follows:

i- Producing your own framework, advantages is that you know your code as well as php spl libraries has lots to substitute for the fat over required frameworks, disadvantages it takes time and lots of efforts.

ii- Using well established frameworks such as zend, yii, cakephp. These frameworks have common design pattern each has strength and weakness most are MVC structure. If you are looking for a light one then I suggest yii even though it is one of the newest. If you are looking for an enterprise level then choose zend. All frameworks have a learning curve to take. If you are not very experienced in object oriented programming then the learning curve is even going to be sharper. The average programmer will take at least a year full time to get comfortable with a framework and about 2-3 years before getting professional at it. It is a strategic decision to take either personally or for work.

2- Using pre packaged products such as content frameworks that grown out of being just cmses, the most famous ones I would suggest are wordpress, drupal and joomla but if the requirements is for school then I suggest you search for a specialist cms for school such as moodle. I know very little about moodle to provide insight. However drupal is a very flexible cms/framework but its main disadvantages the mesh produced in themes and codes. Example functions in drupal produce marks up which makes it extremely time consumed to alter for positioning. It is though simple enough to alter using the css and the template. For commercially packed modules I would suggests to use the free joomla and extends the plugins with fairly cheep extensions. Drupal is the true spirit of open source and it has lots of open source modules to extend its functionality this is also includes school based management systems and shopping carts such as ubercart. Wordpress is the right choice for quick and easy development but I wouldn't choose it for complex projects because it is mainly designed as a blog that you can extend to cms, cart. However one way or another, they are all in the end of the day cmses with a little bit of framework.

3- Pic and mix and this is particularly useful if you want a bit of all worlds. Example don't use MVC but use zend libraries directly, glued in a procedural php and organized in object oriented php. Meaning organize your structure in object oriented and then glue the functionality using simple php and also extend the functionality to cms buy altering the logging script to produce a central script complete system. To illustrate, imagine you have identified your project as it needs a blog and a custom class as well as it will keep expanding. For now you could produce a table to collect user login details only id and password and you make this table as the central table for the log in script to produce a session that will be distributed and stored in another table . All should be in the same domain, so wordpress is your choice for a blog then in the future you learned you need a shopping cart then I would expand that to include megento and again by making the credential and session central to the created script. Megento is built using zend frame and it is not a choice for shared hostings


I will personally choose drupal for the quickest solution. All your requirements are already catered for by drupal community and you also could place your personal touch by using triggers and actions . Drupal also has modules for reporting and logs.

Basically we learn from birth to death.

 

@bakaisco : this is a school project not a production website. I don't think is allowed to use any of the click-and-build programs found with google.

 

I would start from 'scratch' with a team of PHP coders. Show the work flow and function of the site that you want and let them go to work on the individual scripts. Most PHP coders have thousands of scripts already made and could make those all available to their team. It'll be faster than a one-man team or a do-it-yourself. What you're asking for is simple stuff, I'm not trying to deter you from it, because everything you asked about is a simple task to PHP coders, its the size of your project that would take a bit to do it yourself. A team of 5 to 10 PHP coders could have that site going in as little as a couple weeks. With a graphic artists creating your layout /look. If you do it this way, your PHP coders will have your site on their file and if it ever breaks down, gets hacked, or needs to be expanded, they will be the best ones to call because all of the code and labels they created in:
// This function does such and such
will all be understood better by the ones that did the work. (PHP coders label and create notes in their code with the
// This is a message in PHP )

I would start with the basic functions of this site first instead of approaching it all at once, get the basics of it up and running and check the work and see if that PHP team is doing a decent job for the money and then continue. Emphasize to them that they want CLEAR and easy to understand // NOTES on all the code so that anyone could read through the functions and program flow. (This way if you wait a month, year or decide on a new team the code will make perfect sense to the next person to work their way through it)

 

I think people are overthinking this one.

Yes, if this is an actual, to-be-used webpage for reporting problems/issues, and then an actual admin-based controlpanel/overview then you might talk about 10-20-30000$ in cost, and heavy optimization and triggers/serverside running tasks etc.

If it's a schoolproject, you'll have to deal with it a bit differently.

First of all, get the webpage and form up and running. Make it simple, just a form with location (might be a fill-out field, or you can limit to pulling a select list from either a database or an array, depending), description field, and maybe an auto-count/id, together with contact-info the customer/client/user fills out. 5-6 fields at the most, really.

This will then be put into a database, together with a link to any uploaded info/pictures etc. (don't store uploaded in database, upload to filesystem, link in database).

In the admin-interface you need to have a list of all incoming cases, and the ability to set them as solved/pending/new etc.

Overall, depending on the level of involvement and what you really need, this should take between 3-4 days and 8-9 days to code, of course depending on level of knowledge.

 

I don't know about cache but the strange thing is I can not see the impressions in Google website for couple of days back and people do come from google which I have seen in Google Analytics, so something is going on with Google.