Creating a searchable database/ list

Freeway
1

Totally new to all this so apologies for sounding dumb!
I want to create a (Freeway) site within which I have a list/ directory of restaurants. The list is quite extensive so I wanted to apply a search function - such as search restaurants by cuisine (Italian, Chinese, etc), that creates a list of results of only those particular restaurants.
Again, apologies and many thanks in advance.

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2

Everyone is new at something once. I started years ago knowing nothing at all about HTML or programming of any sort beyond BASIC. So don’t ever be afraid to ask.

What sort of database to use can be answered many different ways, but the place to start is with your data. How structured is it at the moment, and is it already entered somewhere else (a spreadsheet, perhaps)? Are there a mix of different data types, like photos, text, etc.? Do you need to update the data frequently or only once in a great while? And who will be doing the updating and how (Freeway, browser control panel, etc.)?

Answering these questions will help us guide you toward a solution.

To get your hopes up a bit, I have build many different database-backed sites using Freeway Pro over the years, ranging from ultra-simple to all-singing-all-dancing. It’s definitely possible.

Walter

On Feb 14, 2013, at 12:19 PM, Tim wrote:

Totally new to all this so apologies for sounding dumb!
I want to create a (Freeway) site within which I have a list/ directory of restaurants. The list is quite extensive so I wanted to apply a search function - such as search restaurants by cuisine (Italian, Chinese, etc), that creates a list of results of only those particular restaurants.
Again, apologies and many thanks in advance.

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3

On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 at 12:41 PM, Walter Lee Davis email@hiddenwrote:

Everyone is new at something once.

Lol!!! Some of us are new at things many times! :smiley:

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4

Agree Ernie!

Tim: Yep, you can do searchable/filterable/sortable tables in Freeway without too much work. Here’s one I created with some script from Walter and his new TableKit action: http://calebgrove.com/freeway/ultimate_table/

The think that I love about our community here is how everybody is so tolerant and helpful to the fresh fish. No need to apologize for your newness, use it as a incentive to get outside your comfort zone. Welcome to Freeway!

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5

waltd

Thanks very much for coming back. That was quick!

I’ve got a clear start as such - no database as yet.

Looking at basic information such as name/ address/ telephone number; cuisine style; possibly dining options - breakfast/ lunch/ dinner.

Ideally would like to show a photograph.

I would like to do all the data input/ updating myself. Not sure whether through Freeway or browser control panel; as simple and straightforward as possible!

I do not envisage having to update frequently, but would like to be able to update as and when I wish.

Hope that helps.

Thanks again.

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6

Thanks Caleb Grove.

Hope it’s all straightforward to a complete novice like myself. Without this facility my website would be greatly diminished. I think there is a plugin for rapidweaver, but freeway looks far more user friendly.

Thanks again.

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7

You’re probably going to want to make a control panel for this, especially with this many different restaurants. A control panel will enforce some rigor in your design – giving you “slots” into which the same data points may be entered (or skipped) for each restaurant. You’ll need to have a way to upload photos if you want those, using a control panel will let the server do all the work of sizing the image to a specific layout, and a bit of attention to the way you compose your page will let a record appear “normal” with or without that image.

What I would do to start with is make a few different variations on a restaurant page. One with photo, one without, maybe one with fewer data points filled in than the others. Try to work out what the variations on the theme are in your head with dummy (or real) data.

Once you have that part done, post a link to it so we can see what you have to work with. These variations will either become one smart template, or each will become a “dumb” template; we’ll have to see how many degrees of freedom you need before we go further.

It’s also helpful to figure out if your server supports PHP and MySQL (most do), and if so, which versions of each.

Walter

On Feb 14, 2013, at 2:21 PM, Tim wrote:

waltd

Thanks very much for coming back. That was quick!

I’ve got a clear start as such - no database as yet.

Looking at basic information such as name/ address/ telephone number; cuisine style; possibly dining options - breakfast/ lunch/ dinner.

Ideally would like to show a photograph.

I would like to do all the data input/ updating myself. Not sure whether through Freeway or browser control panel; as simple and straightforward as possible!

I do not envisage having to update frequently, but would like to be able to update as and when I wish.

Hope that helps.

Thanks again.

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8

As far as searchable variables are concerned I’m happy just with “cuisine style” and maybe one other.

There are around 150 restaurants to list.

Bottom line is I need to keep it as simple as possible to do!

Thanks for your perseverance.

Tim

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9

Also figure out what subset of the total data for each restaurant you want to show on your index listing page. That page can be made to do a live search, like this example: Kangax’s Quick Filter – but you don’t want to put all data points in that one table, it will get messy fast.

Walter

On Feb 15, 2013, at 10:46 AM, Walter Lee Davis wrote:

What I would do to start with is make a few different variations on a restaurant page.

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10

I was imagining you might have what’s called a “master/detail” layout. A long list with your searchable data points, and then clicking on an individual list item would expose more detail about that item. Is that what you are after here, if not, are you planning to have one massive list page and no individual detail pages? That could be done entirely in Freeway, following the example I posted a moment ago.

Walter

On Feb 15, 2013, at 11:02 AM, Tim wrote:

As far as searchable variables are concerned I’m happy just with “cuisine style” and maybe one other.

There are around 150 restaurants to list.

Bottom line is I need to keep it as simple as possible to do!

Thanks for your perseverance.

Tim

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11

Thinking of something like this:

http://www.visitportugal.com/pturismo/Search/search.aspx?Action=Search&SearchType=AllWords&What=Gastronomia&Page=1&Language=en

Only with just the two drop menus (search variables?) and a link to another page (where I could put a photograph and additional information) as done in the above example.

If this is too ambitious/ complicated, a single massive list (that is searchable/ filterable) may be best whilst I get the hang of things.

Hope thats makes sense.

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12

It really depends on what ambitious means to you. In my mind, having to type the same thing in more than one place 150 times just screams out for a database to contain it and a couple of templates to display it. But there is an awful lot of “plumbing” required to get that going – plumbing that I have written over and over and have no difficulty imagining or creating. If you’ve never done any programming at all, you may find it easier to just create the contents in Freeway as a static site and add a little search smarts through an Action or some drop-in JavaScript. So what sort of experience do you have with programming, if any? (Don’t be shy here – we all started from somewhere, at varying times in the past.)

Walter

On Feb 15, 2013, at 11:34 AM, Tim wrote:

Thinking of something like this:

http://www.visitportugal.com/pturismo/Search/search.aspx?Action=Search&SearchType=AllWords&What=Gastronomia&Page=1&Language=en

Only with just the two drop menus (search variables?) and a link to another page (where I could put a photograph and additional information) as done in the above example.

If this is too ambitious/ complicated, a single massive list (that is searchable/ filterable) may be best whilst I get the hang of things.

Hope thats makes sense.

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13

Walter.

In a word my programming experience is “zero”, I’m afraid to admit.

An Action (a plugin?) would be great but until now I haven’t found anything. I probably wouldn’t recognise any drop-in JavaScript even if I came across it!

Thanks.

Tim

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14

I was referring to the “filter” example I linked to last week. That includes a downloadable Freeway document with the code applied.

Walter

On Feb 17, 2013, at 12:03 PM, Tim wrote:

I probably wouldn’t recognise any drop-in JavaScript even if I came across it!

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15

Got it!

Tim

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16

Tried using just tables. Find a couple of things a bit frustrating:

  1. You don’t seem to be able to hide the table borders so that you only see the text on the page.

  2. When I apply a row search criteria then change another the original one goes haywire. That is using Tablekit.

Maybe I should just give it up as “a bad 'job”!

Thanks to all.

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17

Correction to the above. I meant column search.

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18

Please post a link so we can see what is happening here. There is probably a conflict between the two functions, and it should be easy to sort out once we can see it running in a browser with the developer tools enabled.

Walter

On Feb 18, 2013, at 11:07 AM, Tim wrote:

Tried using just tables. Find a couple of things a bit frustrating:

  1. You don’t seem to be able to hide the table borders so that you only see the text on the page.

  2. When I apply a row search criteria then change another the original one goes haywire. That is using Tablekit.

Maybe I should just give it up as “a bad 'job”!

Thanks to all.

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19

I’m just trying Freeway out. No website up and published on the web.

Tim

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20

I recommend that you find a space somewhere – even a freebie host will do – and post your page there so we can work on it together. Talking about it and seeing the specific error in a browser’s console are worlds apart. I cannot begin to imagine how tedious and frustrating it will be for you and me, collectively, to figure out what’s going wrong there without a shared source to work from.

Walter

On Feb 18, 2013, at 12:05 PM, Tim wrote:

I’m just trying Freeway out. No website up and published on the web.

Tim

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