I´d like to build a “employment” web site for my local area, where people could fill out a form and upload a photo. All needs to be in catagories with easy search tools.
I’m new to database design and I might be over my head but… I’ve seen so many web sites that work this way that I thought that Freeway might have a way to keep it simple (I’m useing Freeway Express 5).
Am I over my head? I’ve used Filemaker Pro 6 for years and I am familiar with simple database design. Any help?
Sounds like a major project to me. Unfortunately, Like you say, not
impossible as people do do this kind of thing… however I have no
experience at it.
Best of luck to you.
On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 3:01 PM, Eric Adam Collins wrote:
I´d like to build a “employment” web site for my local area, where people could fill out a form and upload a photo. All needs to be in catagories with easy search tools.
I’m new to database design and I might be over my head but… I’ve seen so many web sites that work this way that I thought that Freeway might have a way to keep it simple (I’m useing Freeway Express 5).
Am I over my head? I’ve used Filemaker Pro 6 for years and I am familiar with simple database design. Any help?
There was a plug-in for Freeway Pro a number of years ago that
allowed you to put a Web skin over a Filemaker database. It was
called DataDesigner, and it worked really well. Unfortunately, it
didn’t survive the changes made between version 6 and 7. FMP is at
version 9 now, I think. I doubt you would be able to find a
commercial host that would offer FMP6 hosting at any price.
You may not be out of your depth conceptually, but the first step up
the learning curve between FMP and the more usual MySQL is about 50
feet high. The next one is pretty steep as well. And there’s nothing
in Freeway Express to make it any easier, either, since you can’t use
third-party Actions to write any of the code for you.
I’d say you’re probably going to find this a really ambitious
project, and either you will take that as a challenge, get a couple
of really fat books and a text editor and start the business of
learning to code, or you will try to find another way to do this
project.
Walter
On Jun 11, 2008, at 6:01 PM, Eric Adam Collins wrote:
Am I over my head? I’ve used Filemaker Pro 6 for years and I am
familiar with simple database design. Any help?
This can be done in Freeway but Freeway cannot do it for you.
This is all fairly straightforward stuff for someone who can say…
use MySQL and php, you could do it yourself if you where to learn
MySQL and php! big undertaking… but that’s how I did my first
database web site, I got a book, did an exercise on creating a
database, php scripts, getting it all to run on my Mac, then on the
server, then learnt how to integrate it into Freeway… and then
started on my first purpose built dynamic web site. Now I did not do
this overnight, this was a few years ago (and a couple more), it took
quite a bit of time (about 3 months working 2 to 8 hours on it each
day), I got help from a user on this list (Walter) as well as others
on other lists and forums… but it was all worth it, since then every
web site I have built using Freeway has been dynamic in one way or
another if not totally.
Back then there was less information about on using MySQL and php,
also php had just gone through some changes which hadn’t reached the
books when I started and this cost me a lot of time, but I got there
in the end… as you will probably do if you went this way. You could
probably use Filemaker, I actually remember there being some actions
around but I have no idea to be truthful and in fact decided to take
the open source path myself because of the cost of Filemaker and
hosting the sites, the php and MySQL path is free and basically only
cost me the books.
So I guess you have a couple of options, either learn MySQL and php
and then build the site yourself, or get a developer to do it for you.
Obviously the first option takes time and the second costs money…
unless there is something you can do with Filemaker although I haven’t
see the actions around for a while so maybe this is no longer an
option, maybe someone else will pipe in on that side.
One thing to consider on this is that you need to be aware of having a
way of keeping up to date the entries that people make to the
database. You will find that people will happily add themselves to the
database but when they get employment through your site or otherwise,
they will not be so quick to remove themselves, so you will need to
think of a way of controlling this or you will end up with a load of
outdated info.