surefire

I have to add another two cents here. After reading Jimuni's post, I had to add this. If you take the job... both parties should know and understand what to expect. If you don't like the job... don't take it. If part of the job is to create a site that might not be what you would create for yourself... but you're doing it in return for compensation... then do it. Have it very clear in your mind whether you would rather be 'right' and poor... or if you can put off feeling 'right' for a little while. The way these things are handled should be discussed from the beginning. You should find out if part of your job is to give your opinion on things... or if the client just wants someone to do his/her bidding. IMHO, either one is fine with me... so long as everyone understands the rules of the game. I have run into plenty of potential clients that I knew would expect the world for nothing, pay slowly, and complain often. Some money costs too much... if that makes sense. Fire a bad client if you have to. But it's better to avoid a bad client if you can. A truly bad one will suck the life out of you and cost you business. I don't want to sound negative... most clients are awesome to work with. But all it takes is one to ruin your month.

Tracy, since you downloaded the latest version, you should be able to set the file locations for the header and footer files in the config.php When you say it doesn't work... can you tell me what the error is... or does it just not work. With the new PHP upgrade, TCH has turned off some of the error reporting. This will make some errors just show a blank page, rather than give an error message. Can you send me the page for your form so I can see it?

You said it yourself, you're getting paid to do what they want. Now, if what the client wants is offensive to your notions of professionalism, then don't take the job. You have to be ready to walk away from business but you also have to know what you are willing to do and what you absolutely won't do. Personally, adding an animated gif doesn't seem like a deal breaker to me... but that's me. I would handle it by (1) talking with the decision maker from the get go so I don't have to build the site twice and (2) explaining to the client that you will build what they want, but you have an opinion about what works and what doesn't. Give your opinion and then let them decide. Don't be offended if your opinion doesn't sway them. And I'd stongly consider you to leave out the whole thing about professionalism... that's a good way to offend someone. If the owner is smart, he/she doesn't care one lick about professionalism and cares more about whether the site you build generates leads or revenue effectively. So, if you think the gif is going to cost the owner lost revenue, then say so. If you think it's cheesy and ugly, then I'd create a static version for them to compare versus the animated.

SGarrett, you don't need to set up a server with Dreamweaver. I code PHP with Dreamweaver all day long and I just upload my code to the site to see how it's working. Now, you won't be able to see what the script or code is doing until it's on a server. so like I said, just write your code, and upload it to TCH. Go visit the webpage, and you'll see your code in action. Dreamweaver preview isn't really going to work effectively with PHP. It's server side code... which means it needs a server. I'm sure some folks out there have tweaked their home system to have their computer work as a server.... but let's keep things simple. Create this file in Dreamweaver <?php print("Hello World"); ?> And upload the file to your website. Once you get that process down, it's the same no matter how big the script.

Thanks 1stover... your suggestion was good too. Sarah, look in your script for "Sorting by:" so that you can find the line that prints out this statement. Once you find it, you shouldn't have too much problem identifying the variable name that actually prints out the column name. One way to get a cleaner version would be to do a replace statement that removes certain characters. So let's say the variable is $column and the print statement looks something like print("Sorting by: $column"); But you're getting stuff like: Sorting by: Date_Of_Call Then you could do this: $new_column = str_replace("_"," ", $column); print("Sorting by: $new_column"); This keeps the value of the first variable the same and keeps your code intact but also creates a new variable that replaces all "_" with a space. This way, you can add as many columns as you like and the code will still work perfectly. There you go!

The posts I've seen in the past on this topic seem to indicate that doing a 301 redirect is the way to do a permanent page move (even though you aren't technically moving the page... just the location of the home of the site). Wish I could give you more info, but haven't done it myself.

1stover has a good idea worth checking into. But it sounds like you just need to change a variable in your script so that the echo or print statement says something different than it currently does.

Along the lines of Including repetitive parts of your page, visit PHP 101, where I've pinned some great threads contributed by many TCH members.

Are you referring to the email that sends out the contents of the form to you, the webmaster? If so, then you'll want to change the mailit.php script. That's the part that compiles all of the POST data and formats it, emails it to you. First, I'm not quite clear as to why you are concerned about the formatting and prettiness of the info that gets sent to you. This is just the info filled out by the visitor. What would seem to make more sense (unless I misunderstand) would be to create a prettier email that is automatically sent out to your visitor upon completing your form. If that's the case, then you'll want to modify the config.php file. This procedure would be much easier to do. Just fiddle with the last set of variables named $auto_content You can basically put anything you want in there... just try to follow the pattern and structure I've already given you in the script. But it is really easy to put your own personal message in there. If you do indeed want to prettify the email that gets sent to you... then you'll need to give me some idea of what you're looking for. The modifications on the mailit.php script will not be as straightforward. That's why I tried to pull out all of the modifications into the config script.

I've never tried mysql columns with spaces. You might want to try it without to see if your script works.

I like Singer's line of thought.

hotscripts.com Figuring out what browser is one thing... but you also have to have a plan for what to do with the information. I don't think the browser sniffer will do this for you. Will require some coding. Just a heads up.

I'm getting the feeling that SGarrett wants some sort of scrolling ability rather than just previous and next buttons that advance (or reverse) by one page at a time. If this is correct, then all you need is a drop down select box that takes users to the page that they select.

IMHO, you can't really cater to ALL browsers, but just need to make a conscious decision of where you are going to draw the line. Different methods include CSS hacks - writing less than orthodox css code to trick some browsers into glossing over parts of your design code Browser sniffing - setting up a script that reads what type of browser is visiting and then serving up versions of your site Upgrade messages - using either one of the two previous methods to give the visitor a message that your site would look better in an updated version of the browser Redirects - Aggressive redirects to pages that tell the user to upgrade browsers Just ignoring certain browsers - and putting a line on your site that says, this site best viewed with X browser What you choose depends on your goals and personality.

I'm sorry I'm not more up to speed with .htaccess. I know just enough to get one or two things done. But that is some kinda list! You could start your own deck of cards with people you've banned from your site.

I'm sure it won't surprise you that I was hoping you (and others) would reply. I agree with: A year ago, I had purchased Planet Ocean's ebook. Decent info, but as I learned more, it was obvious it was outdated. When I asked the question, I was wondering if anyone had a mailing list that was reliable and up to speed. I'll try to do a Google on Stanford and seo terms... maybe with a lot of hunting it'll come up. And although I know that your links back to the TCH pages were for the benefit of others as well, I've read those... but I think I've done all of that stuff. My results are good... but I need every angle I can get in a competitive category. Other sites I've done for easier categories worked fine... but this category or niche I'm in is tough. As I'm off to Google dsdemmin's suggestion... does anyone have any other input?

Inktomi seems to be a major contender or at least an important factor when considering search engine optimization of a web site. My questions... has anyone paid inktomi and did you find that it was worth it? Does inktomi only visit the urls you pay them for? Or do they follow links within your site? My personal experience is that Googlebot has been looking at several thousand of my pages every month but Inktomi only looks at about a hundred (it's a big site). So I'm looking for a way to get Inktomi more active. It would seem that since Inktomi knows where I am, paying would be a waste... but I'm not at all sure.

Anyone got suggestions for truly useful information that is up to date and accurate? Thanks.

Table tricks with loops. Obviously I can't cover all the infinite varieties of uses here... but let's see if I can't give you something to play with. What if you want to create a table with alternating row colors, but you don't know how long the table will be... why not? Well you might be pulling an unknown amount of data from a database. So here we go... remember, you can start off a php page as html and then jump into php at any time. We'll start with html Then we'll start our table... still in html (but can be done with php too) Now php... That's the start of our loop. Now for something new The whole bit with $x%2 gives us (the server actually) the remainder of dividing $x by 2. So 4%2 = 0 (no remainder) and 5%2 = 1 (1 left over after division). This has the effect of generating either a one or zero every time through the loop. And it alternates, which is very convenient. The if statement read like "If this is true... do what's in between first { } otherwise either move on or do what's inside the else { } brackets." So, we are effectively alternating the value of $bg... which will be our background color. Okay. The home stretch. The rest of the code is a simple print statement. $bg is our alternating background color. The \ before the quotes tells the server "Not done yet. The quotation mark is actually part of the print statement... not a signal that the print statement is over." A simple, one column table with alternating row colors.

I haven't done a tutorial in a while, been really busy making a living. But it's late and I've got time on my hands. Let's talk about loops. Loops are used in many programming languages to have the computer (server) go back to a prior portion of the code until some special trigger is... triggered. There are lots of ways to do this in php Here's a while loop: Everything in the brackets is the loop. The print statement will execute each loop and then variable x will be increased by one. Once x is no longer less than 20, the loop will terminate and the script will move on. If the loop is improperly set up, the loop will go on forever (theoretically) and is called an infinite loop. These are bad. Luckily, the server is set to timeout after a while. But avoid writing infinite loops (if you can). BAD (infinite loop) while(1 = 1) { print("hello"); } One will always equal one so there is no termination to the loop. Another type of loop, and my preferred method, is the for loop. This does exactly the same thing as the other loop. It will print out a sequence of numbers up until x is no longer less than 20. 1 2 3 4 etc... A couple of things to note before moving on to useful applications: >if you don't declare the variable ($x=1 or whatever) then it's assumed to be zero unless an earlier part of your script assigned a number to the variable. When in doubt, declare the variable... even though it's not required. >writing $x++ is shorthand for $x=$x+1; >the for loop has the start, termination, and increments separated by semicolons not commas On to useful...er stuff

Sorry. But I'm much better at php than cgi. Otherwise I'd be able to help you out.

Stevevan, You saved me the trouble of finding that link that I gave you when you had this same issue. This is what makes TCH so great. Everyone helps out and passes info along.

You are absolutely right... this is what was left over after debugging. Just lazy and didn't rewrite it. No, I haven't mentioned it to the authors. I'll check out their website and see if I can email them. It looked like I had to sign up for a mailing list... which I really don't wanna do.

If you are using isearch, then please make sure that results that yield more than one page are working properly. Example, I installed on a client's webste and found that a search for a common term turned up two pages of results. But it jumped right to the last page. I couldn't get it to show me the first page no matter what I did. If the search turned up just a couple of results that could display on one page, no problem. So after debugging the son of a gun for hours here's what I came up with: In isearch/index.php (the heart of the script) Must be changed to Hope this helps somebody.

Am I sure... no. Just strong conviction... but you bring up an excellent idea. Before getting into that... look at what digirunt said So log in appears to be the way this other site does it. No doubt a database run site with preferences tied to the user id. But you make an excellent suggestion. You could create a script that tells the site which preferences to load up based on the url. www.digiruntsite.com/favs/1234.htm And have 1234 be the variable that tells the site where to look in the database. Have the script auto create favorite into IE. Biggest drawback would be that the user would have to enter via that favorite or that url to load up the preferences. The only other way that I know would be database(login and user management scripts) or cookies.