TEN RULES FOR YOUR PROYECT

0th Lists don't have to start at 1
1rst Astahost is on a IP.Board = Invision Power Board. Want someting similar?? buy a license ...
2nd ... Or start your own... estimated time: 3 years
3rd Don't use Frontpage
4th Don't use Photoshop
5th Don't use Dreamweaver
6th Don't use Windows
7th Use linux
8th Use quanta
9th Use php.net/functionname

Blessings!

This post has been edited by develCuy: Aug 27 2007, 04:36 PM

I want to know what should I install if I use PHP, I mean what are the other applications associated with when building a site. Should I have CSS, Flash, Apache, SQL, etc...

Well this is my setup for my computer, where I do all my developing:

Apache
PHP
MySQL
PHPMyAdmin
Firefox
Safari
Opera
IE
HAPedit (http://hapedit.free.fr) (Colour-coded php/html/css etc. editor)

It's good to have all the major browsers, because you could make a really good, nice looking site, and upload it, only to find that it only works in one browser!

i have xampp on my jump drive, its like perl, cgi, openssl, apache, mysql, php, filezilla and mercury mail and a few other things in one.
for editing i use notepad and notepad++
i finished learning css a while ago, and ive started TRYING to learn php. also i tried learning javascript a while ago but i rather php, i need php more for my site than javascript.

by the way, you dont have to use invision power board, there are alot of free ones out there, i recomend AEF, a good site for a heap of free open source cms's forums stuff like that is Open Source CMS, it has online demos where you can try them out.

Get it.. XAMMP. All in one if you are into doing some dynamic website. It allows you to FTP and test it like a normal web hosting site. Get the lite version. Its easy to setup and more than enough to do what you want.

Anyway just some info, if you really are creating a website that are more towards enterprise, you would definitely need some kind of framework. Some PHP framework. Some that I would recommend are: CakePHP (currently using this for my site), symfony, Zend framework and Seagull. I guess you can google them and see what suit you best. All the security and session issue are handled by them. CHeers.

This post has been edited by kelvinmaki: Sep 27 2007, 12:22 PM

Umm...why shouldn't you use Photoshop? I mean, assuming that you can afford the software, Photoshop's a great way to create logos and other areas that are more graphics-orientated on your site. Obviously if you can't afford it, then use GIMP, but Photoshop's got plenty of good features. Are you denouncing it because it's Windows-only? That still doesn't mean its quality is any less.

Now, I agree with the not-recommending Dreamweaver and Frontpage points--neither creates semantically correct HTML. When you do decide to edit something by hand because Dreamweaver and Frontpage were unable to do it for you, you'd end up dead while wading through those series of nested tables.

This is not quite true. When you're testing the website, you do need to consider what a Windows user on IE would see, and not just what Linux users would see. Most of your audience, after all, do use Windows. Key point in making a website is to cater to your audience.

If you're going the PHP way, I'd recommend CakePHP (currently using it as well) and symfony. There are plenty of other PHP frameworks out there and I've tried a few, but those two seem the most well-developed, though they still lack in good documentation.

A good way to learn PHP (after you've brushed over the basics) is to look at an existing codebase and either contribute or at least understand what's going on. So instead of just using CakePHP, try to look under the hood and see why everything is being coded the way it is.

I also use Notepad++ for editing, though I don't think it makes a huge difference what editor you're using if you're just building a site. Notepad++'s got the basics expected from a text editor: highlighting, collapsing sections of code, macros, etc.

hung~, to make a website like astahost.com is not so easy. by what i read u dont even know the basic of programming, thats bad man. i recommend to start study html and css... later u can start javascripts and when u got the necessary experience search for php/asp tutorials... i saw some goodies "how-to" here on forum.. ahh by the way, astahost.com is basicaly forums, so u can use scripts already done like phpBB or Invision Power Board(IPB - used by astahost.com)..
now go ahead man, dont waste your time.

Ok as people have mentioned already that if its for a group a forums system/message board is a great idea and i strongly recommend SMF as a free one, you can download it at www.simplemachines.org. If you want more features to add to that to make it more like a webpage and less of just a forum you can download tinyportal wich is a portal software that adds many features to smf. Now if you want to make more advanced websites in the future i strongly recommend LEARNING html, xhtml, css to start then after you have that down look into php, javascript, and other programing languages. Dreamweaver works great but i personally perfer to code my sites from scratch, even tho they dont always turn out that great i learn to know why somthing is wrong... well good luck with you website creation

I had trouble when I first started my first website at first too. I started off using HTML. It's good for basic web design and easy-to-remember codes. You can find some basic html design on w3schools. When I had my website, I turned to them for many things that I forgot (in different programming languages).

If you want a good software to use, you can use mysql. Mysql is easy and it doesn't take much effort to make a good website.

This post has been edited by A W K: Oct 14 2007, 11:02 PM

ya, but to use mysql you need a bit of php knowlege as well. And i personally find php kinda advanced and frustrating lol