PHP? Web Elements Request

[Lazerblade]

Nobody ever posts about software in this section, even though that's where it should be. Well, maybe a few people do. Anyway, here's what I need.

I'm going to be re-creating a website for a client as part of my internship through the school. It's a local Auto Sales service, or something along those lines. Anyway, the woman that will be my boss wants a web page with searchables, submittable forms, and a means for visitors to send her text through the site in the form of a type-in box which when submitted sends an e-mail. She also wants security of course.

So am I looking for PHP modules? What is the best way of tackling this project? Can anyone point me in the direction I need to go to get this done? No worries, I'm not going to be doing web for the rest of my life, so any secrets you share will only be for me to pass my internship class and get paid a nominal fee for the work.

Speaking of fees, how much should I charge as an intern yet a professional designer, without seeming too expensive and without causing those of you in the field any harm on pricing negotiations in the future?

[MindlessOath]

why dont you just code it yourself?  isnt that what you went for school for?  or is it just copy paste or upload 3rd party code and edit the way it looks?

i used mambo and a buncha modules - whatever wasnt out that i wanted, i made myself and added them onto the portal.

http://www.opensourcecms.com/
http://www.cmsmatrix.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_management_system
mabe those will help, but mabe i overlooked what you were looking for, im not 100% sure

[Lazerblade]

No, I went to school, and am still in school, for Graphic Design. The school I chose was one of the lower-cost ones, also far from where I used to live, and PA schools for art are limited. Not much in the way of art/tech mixtures, but my school did delve into Lightwave, which I was pleased with.

What I need is a couple of sites with pre-made modules, free preferrably, and tutorial sites, so I can create a decent functionally interactive PHP-based site. The graphics end I can easily handle. And I'm a fast learner so learning how to interpret and modify code should be up my alley. I'm looking into PHP-Nuke and add-on modules for that. I was just wondering if anyone had some info to share to make my journey a bit quicker. I'm not afraid to work hard and learn fast, I'm just pressed for time right now and want to make sure I get a quick launch into this so I can show results and know what I'm talking about when it comes time to present my ideas.

[farmboy]

hmph.  i could do all of that if you had coldfusion, but, unfortunately, no one uses coldfusion.

[MindlessOath]

well, i would stear far away from phpnuke!!!!! everyones designs look the same and bland, the colors are the only change, go for something you can make any design and make it look great!  if you want a cookie cutter site get phpnuke - and btw i would go with nukephp vs phpnuke - its much more secure but less development.  when choosing a portal IE cms... you want to factor in many points not just a few.  

1security
2community
3ease of coding/editing etc
4ease of use
5artistic ability

there are more things to look for but i find these great to start with.

making your own code would be the far best idea because you can do whatever you want without bloat and done exactly the way you want.  some languages to learn would be php, asp and cold fusion, those are all great! asp and coldfusion are the easiest and i would recomend any grfx artist to learn them at least the basics of each of those languages to see how you can create artwork for the drawing board (ie the website).

those links i put up there would be great for you too look through and see what is best for you, the nuke sites are all the same but are cookie cutter sites, so they are easy to make for... but your site is going to look the same, and no matter how cool you are at art - its not going to make the site better! because of the fact that it looks the same as everyone elses.

[deadsanchez]

i used coldfusion. been a while tho.

[Lazerblade]

MO, etc...,

The ONLY thing my employer needs for her site to work properly is the ability of visitors to submit feedback, via the site, without using their own e-mail program. It pretty much has to be self-contained, but something that will send an e-mail once people click submit. Nothing more. No ongoing database, no forum, no news section, just an online interactive web form. But there has to be security too.

to what she has now. This is for an unpaid internship. I will be spending up to 120 hours, possibly more, working on this project, but as you can see, I will need to remake old and create new graphics for this site as it's pretty unsavory and unappealing right now. So I want to limit the technical side of things to maybe 1/6th of those hours, less if possible.

Does that clarify the situation some? I just need some advice, maybe a nudge in the right direction of what to use. I do have limited PERL knowledge, not enough to write code without using some help, but enough to maybe modify code for the purpose of the site.

[Reeper]

Here man, I wrote a little script for you that should give you a good base to work from.
I have NOT tested this code since I just formatted my system and dont have the web services installed on it yet. So there may be a few bugs in there ... there shouldnt be but ... you know.

Code:

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
//                                                       //
//                Simple Mail Script                     //
//           copyright 2006 Brad Gushurst                //
//                                                       //
//       I assume no liability for any misuse or         //
//       damages caused by the use of this script        //
//       or any worked derived from it.                  //
//                                                       //
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

// Configuration variables

$EMAIL['destination'] = "youremail@gmail.com";
$EMAIL['subject'] = "Subject Line of Incoming Email";
$EMAIL['from'] = "Who Should the Email be From?";

// Run email code only is data has been submitted
if($_POST['submit']) {

// Clean the email data
$name = preg_replace('/[^a-zA-Z0-9]/', '', $_POST['name']); // Replaces everything but alpha numeric characters with nothing (deletes them)
$email = preg_replace('/[^a-zA-Z0-9.@-_]/', '', $_POST['email']); // Same as above except allows extra characters for email
$comments = preg_replace('/[^a-zA-Z0-9]/', '', $_POST['comments']); // Same as name

// Make sure none of fields are empty
if($name != '' && $email != '' && $comments != '') {

// Assembe the message text
$message = $name . " has sent you a message:n";
$message .= "Email: " . $email . "n";
$message .= $comments . "n";
$message .= "nn Message Was Sent on " . date('l F jS, Y');

// Send off the message
mail($EMAIL['destination'], $EMAIL['subject'], $message, 'From: ' . $EMAIL['from']);
}
}

?>












Name:

Email:

Comments <?php echo $_POST['comments']; ?>

I commented it all up for you so it should be easy to see what is going on. So if there are any bugs they will be easy to find, and its much easier to learn from if you know what is doing what.

Any questions feel free to ask.

[Autoload]

I couldn't get the above one to work. This one is similiar.  Try this one if you have problems. I'm not the author of this, but I can't remember where I downloaded it from. Copy the contents below and put in in a *.php file on your web server. *= any name you want to give the page like email.php or contact.php
 
 

Code:

if (isset($_POST['send'])) {
  session_start();
  $name = $_POST['name'];
  $email = $_POST['email'];
  $content = $_POST['content'];
  if (!preg_match("(^[-w.]+@([-a-z0-9]+.)+[a-z]{2,4}$)i", $email)) $alert = "You have entered an invalid email address.";
  if ($name == "" OR $email == "" OR $content == "") $alert = "To send a message, please complete all 3 fields.";
 
  if ($_SESSION['mail_count'] >= "3") $alert = "Only 3 messages can be sent per session.";
 
  if (!$alert) {
    if (!isset($_SESSION['mail_count'])) $_SESSION['mail_count'] = 0;
    $_SESSION['mail_count']++;
    $message .= "Name as follows:nn";
    $message .= "$namenn";
    $message .= "Email address as follows:nn";
    $message .= "$emailnn";
    $message .= "Message as follows:nn";
    $message .= "$contentnn";
    mail("destination_email@domain.com", "Subject of incoming Email" , "$message", "From: anyone@domain.com <>");
    $name = "";
    $email = "";
    $content = "";
    $alert = "Your message has been sent.";
  }
}
?>








 
   
 

Send a Message                       Your Name                                           Your Email Address                                           Your Message           <?=$content?><br />

if ($alert) {
echo "";
}
?>

 

[Lazerblade]

Thanks guys, I'll give these a shot and see where it gets me. Is there anything needed for the server in order to run PHP code? Or is that client-side stuff included with like IE and such? I'm really a PHP noob so any detailed explanation would be appreciated. I'm not a network or internet noob, so feel free to use terms that any average geek would understand.

[Autoload]

PHP is a server sided scripting language.  While you can install a web server and PHP on your home PC you will require PHP to be installed on your web server.  Version 5.2.2 is the latest, but anything 4.x or higher will be fine.
 
Another alternative is to use CGI if your web server doesn't have PHP installed.  CGI requires PERL and most all web servers should have PERL installed.  Something like NMS form mail is secure and would work fine for you.

[MindlessOath]

you can make code like that in just regular html, but i wouldnt count on it being secure.