I’m making a complex insurance comparison site. I need to make a search function where I can select a number of criteria from various lists, hit the search button and all the search matches pop up.
I’m thinking something like carzone.ie but with drop-down search menus instead of their more complicated method.
Can anyone help me at all?
Cheers,
Colm.
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funny… same question… same busines ( insurance) and same method… was looking here and found your question,
so i second that… ( iff Colm does not mind that is)
Greetings Eugenie
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Hi Colm and Eugenie,
that search uses http://www.endeca.com/ that means a commercial product (or an additional product). Might be that there are solutions for free but I won`t bet on it.
By the way - heavy car prices in ireland. A new VW Polo will cost € 21 500.- (Germany about € 15 000.-). Is it due to taxes and duty?
Thomas
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Hi thomas.
that is why i alway’s buy my 25+ in germany 
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On Apr 28, 2010, at 3:39 AM, Colm Tuite wrote:
I’m thinking something like carzone.ie but with drop-down search
menus instead of their more complicated method.
The path of least resistance is going to be buying a canned/commercial
solution as Thomas mentioned.
Otherwise:
Todd
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Hi Todd,
Please forgive me, i don’'t want to be rude, but if i could build it myself, i would not ask for help. I’m sure Colm would agree…?
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Well it’s important to understand where the limits are here. Freeway
will make the HTML (front-end) for any sort of search engine you can
imagine. All you need really is a set of pickers with the various
options, and then you need to concatenate their values together into a
request to a search engine somewhere. You can build all of this in
Freeway with nothing except the built-in form tools.
But the back-end – which has to live on the server – will be another
kettle of fish entirely. This is an application program consisting of
a data layer (usually a database, but for things that don’t change all
that often, sometimes a text file), business logic (if this is true,
then return that), and a controller to listen for requests, pass them
to the business logic, and return the answer to the requesters in some
form they can understand.
Todd is absolutely correct in his short list of options, and his
honest assessment (while it might not be what you wanted to hear) is
pretty straightforward truth. If you can’t find this off the shelf
somewhere, you or someone else will have to build it. And I would be
startled if you could find something off the shelf that didn’t need
some expert configuration and installation. All of which costs –
either time or money or both.
Walter
On Apr 28, 2010, at 1:18 PM, eus wrote:
Hi Todd,
Please forgive me, i don’'t want to be rude, but if i could build it
myself, i would not ask for help. I’m sure Colm would agree…?
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Please forgive me, i don’'t want to be rude, but if i could build it
myself, i would not ask for help. I’m sure Colm would agree…?
I mentioned it in the spirit of quickly covering all the major options
Todd
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Please forgive me, i don’'t want to be rude, but if i could build it
myself, i would not ask for help. I’m sure Colm would agree…?
And in the hopes of inspiring others to push beyond their current
skill-set let me add this:
I too was in a similar situation as Colm where I needed a PHP
application to fulfill a client requirement so I scoured the script
sites and tried to hack the current tools I had available to me but it
was pointless. Then Walter told me that I could build it using a
framework. Go figure! It had not even occurred to me to build it
myself until he mentioned it (I had no PHP skills at the time). With a
lot of help and hair-pulling I did it. Sometimes it takes a nudge to
see what’s already in your face and it became an opportunity to become
a more versatile designer/coder. So, my mentioning it is not so
ridiculous as it seems at first blush.
Todd
We all know this one:
“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish;
and you have fed him for a lifetime”
(Or substitute “fish” with PHP. Whatever works for you.)
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I would not go for the give a man a fish option. it’s far to nice to go fishing… but i must say its nice to have some pointers in where to start, and that is very difficould.
i tried some commercial forms…but still its very 'commercial and the feeling that it’s not mine… still stay’s. So an option to find / hire somebody who could make something that fits into my design is not bad. ( i only opted the ‘rude’ remark for the ‘make something yourself option’ wich is absolutely a miracle if i could handle that)
so realy Todd, it was not ment as a bad comment, just that i realy don’t know where to start when i don’t want something commercial. 
and not for the money, more for the ads and banners i don’t like and the design it ususaly takes.
And no; no joomla or any of the cms systems here.
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just that i realy don’t know where to start when i don’t want
something commercial.
What about posting on the Dynamo list where the coders tend to
frequent? Someone there might be able to offer a suggestion to help
get you on the right path.
T.
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Thanks for all the replies guys.
As somebody mentioned, I would prefer to learn to build it myself so I have the skill for future reference rather than relying on off the shelf applications forever. But however, I just learned that the client doesn’t need a search function anymore, well they do, but just a basic one.
They want a complex form instead. Which takes contact details, policy details etc, processes a quote calculation, then receives payment online.
So basically, I’ve been staring at the screen the last 4 hours wondering how I got myself into this mess. I can post this in a new thread if it’s not too relevant to this thread? But does anyone have any advice?
Or if anyone would like to build it for me? Can you tell me roughly what it might cost?
Cheers,
Colm.
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Work with a developer that knows Freeway. I’m sure someone this list could help.
David
On 29 Apr 2010, at 10:25, Colm Tuite wrote:
So basically, I’ve been staring at the screen the last 4 hours wondering how I got myself into this mess. I can post this in a new thread if it’s not too relevant to this thread? But does anyone have any advice?
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As somebody mentioned, I would prefer to learn to build it myself so
I have the skill for future reference rather than relying on off the
shelf applications forever.I can post this in a new thread if it’s not too relevant to this
thread? But does anyone have any advice?Or if anyone would like to build it for me? Can you tell me roughly
what it might cost?
Hi Colm,
First off, congratulations on wanting to learn to build this yourself.
Short-term:
As I’m sure you’re aware, this would be a very big first project and
you may not have enough time for this particular project to learn to
do it yourself. But, there are a couple people here who are handy with
building such things (perhaps someone has already contacted you) so
finding someone may not be too difficult, hopefully.
Long-term:
If you’re serious about learning this stuff start with a very good PHP
book like, “PHP and MySQL Programming”. It’s big and geeky but even if
you’re a novice you’ll find it written in a clear manner. I find that
I need to re-read sections before it sinks in but eventually it does.
And be sure to manually work through the supplied examples - a good
text editor is your friend.
Next, look at some of the available PHP frameworks like MAR (now
developed by our own Walter D.) <http://github.com/walterdavis/myactiverecord
and CodeIgniter http://codeigniter.com/. There are others but
these are my favs and depending on the specifics of the project you
may find one better suited to the job. Using a framework means having
a huge leg-up on the build process as opposed to coding everything
from a blank file.
It’s a long road but hang in there, it gets easier with hard work.
And, if you have techy code-related questions post to the Dynamo list,
someone there probably has an answer.
Todd
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