Topic/Comment System (PHP Help)

[Geodun1]

The Goal: To finish my Web Design Project (Hopefully by Friday)

The URL: http://idebate.reviveddesigns.com

The Hook: A blog style debate website in which users can go back and forth over various topics chosen by the editor (myself).

The Specifics:

1. A Topic/Comment System in the form of a blog. However, the comments are expected to be much longer and will be containing links (references) for the debate.
2. A Topic suggestion form (a simple contact form is likely, nothing special or fancy here, can handle it myself, it's just in my list)
3. A search form to sift through various topics.
4. A way to order the comments ( or arguements) in different ways, so that you can see newest, highest rated, etc.
5. A rating system for comments (NOT topics).

So what do I need? I don't want anyone to do this for me (it's my project after all) but I DO need plenty of help and steering in the right direction. I've got the website's base complete and now am at the dynamic portion of it. Although it's due Friday, I plan on continuing it afterwords so time isn't much of an issue here.

I'm a bit of a PHP Novice but I've been designing websites for awhile now. I understand CSS & HTML. Anyone who offers any advice will get their name listed on the site and will be credited for their help.

 

[jnjc]

My recommendation is to look at one of the CMS packages. The only one I am familiar with is Joomla, it has most of what you are look for either inbuilt or available as an extension. Install it, get you basic structure sorted out and then start looking at the extensions to see if you can get ones that fit your requirements.

There are also heaps of themes available, get one that's close to the look you want and then tweak it to suit.

HTH,
JC

 

[Geodun1]

I would do that, but I am looking to get more in depth experience in PHP. Do you know any good tutorials on building a basic comment scheme?

Besides that, if I used Joomla I feel like I'd be cheating my Web Design class. What's the harm in getting more educated right?

 

[jnjc]

Web design and Web coding are two completely separate things to me. Using a CMS to demonstrate you Design Skills is totally legit as far as I'm concerned. A CMS just deals with the nuts and bolts stuff for you, the layout, structure and design are still up to you.

If you where showcasing your programming skills then to using a CMS would probably be cheating.

What's the harm in getting more educated right?

What's the point in re-inventing the wheel....

Anyway back to your point, if I understand correctly you will propose a debate topic, which will be the article, and then users debate it which will be the comments. So your first port of call would be to write the code to handle the debate topics, which in my mind would be the article system.

 

[Geodun1]

I suppose I could do that, I was originally planning out a set of static pages where I write the topic and then a php form for comments and a section to display the comments. If I have to, I'll resort to a CMS, but I was hoping to do something more simplistic. (If you can call this simple?)

 

[jnjc]

If you are planning on doing it that way then a search on "php comments for a static page" should return plenty of hits. A quick look for me turned up this one:

http://www.gentlesource.com/comment-script/

I do think that this sounds like a really good fit for a CMS but I won't keep harping on about it. Maybe someone else can throw in their two cents in case I'm being a bit one eyed....

HTH,
JC

 

[Geodun1]

Thanks for the help, I hadn't had much luck googling it (I'm one of the few people that only asks for help when I hit an honest dead end after running down my problem troubleshoot list). I hadn't tried putting "for a static page" in, so I'll try that now.