Static and Dynamic content

[Guest]

Hi

I want to create a predominantly static xhtml website as the content of many of the pages shouldnt change too often, however I also want to create other pages which could be forums or areas for members to upload pictures / info etc.

1) is it possible to do this with one database
2) Is it possible to get users to log in once and still be acknowledged as 'logged in' even on the static pages?

Im good with xhtml and css but havent had much experience with databases.. so any advice would be great as Im looking to see which hosting package I should buy.

Thanks

[Günter_Schenk]

Hi,

>>
1) is it possible to do this with one database
>>

although the contents of your static pages won´t reside in your database of course, you can well setup a database driven content management system (CMS) where some entries (or records) won´t grab the contents from the database itself, but rather point to the physical file on your server -- I recently did the same on a "mixed" system. This way it´s up to you to define whether CMS ID 1 is getting "linked" to, say, <a href="index.php?id=1">linktext</a> (this would be the "dynamic" option) or <a href="mystaticfile.html">linktext</a> -- but setting up such a mixed system is weird and a conceptual nightmare, and I only did that because my customer urged me to include his existing static pages within a new CMS

>>
2) Is it possible to get users to log in once and still be acknowledged as 'logged in' even on the static pages?
>>

Static pages themselves aren´t capable to e.g. let you include a session variable which would identify a visitor as logged in or not -- well, you can try that, but it won´t have any effect 😉 The only workaround is to show/hide the *links* to such static pages on other dynamic pages depending if the visitor is logged in or not.

Honestly said -- if possible, I´d suggest to make all your pages "dynamic" (that is, transferring the contents of your current static pages to the CMS), also because it seems that detecting the visitors "logged in" state has quite some importance to you in general.

[Newsgroup_User]

Lou28 wrote:
> 1) is it possible to do this with one database

Yes.

> 2) Is it possible to get users to log in once and still be acknowledged as
> 'logged in' even on the static pages?

No, but dynamic pages can contain as much static content as you want.
When building a site, it makes more sense to use the same filename
extension for all pages. That way, you can add dynamic content to any
page without the need to redirect users from the old static page.

> Im good with xhtml and css but havent had much experience with databases.. so
> any advice would be great as Im looking to see which hosting package I should
> buy.

The first decision that you need to make is which server-side language
you're going to use. Dreamweaver supports ASP, ASP.NET 1.0, ColdFusion,
JSP, and PHP.

If you have no previous experience, ASP isn't a good choice because
Microsoft has switched all development to ASP.NET. So you would be
learning a technology that will eventually fade out (although I'm sure
it will take many years for it to happen). Also a lot of ASP sites use
Access as the main database. It's suitable only for small sites that
don't get much traffic.

ASP.NET and JSP have a steeper learning curve, and Dreamweaver doesn't
support ASP.NET 2.0. That leaves ColdFusion and PHP, both of which are
relatively easy to learn, and fairly widely supported.

--
David Powers, Adobe Community Expert
Author, "Foundation PHP for Dreamweaver 8" (friends of ED)
Author, "PHP Solutions" (friends of ED)
http://foundationphp.com/

[Guest]

Thanks to both of you for that..

So in summary I should create the whole site dynamically with static pages within that??
With a web hosting package, is a CMS included and all set up ready to go? Are they easy to learn?

I have a bit of experience with PHP so I'd prefer to use that possibly with mySQL.

Thanks again

[Günter_Schenk]

>>
So in summary I should create the whole site dynamically with static pages within that??
>>

I´d suggest this, especially if you´re planning to create *many* "other pages" (forum, member area etc) which need to have "dynamic" features -- that said, if the overall volume of your (dynamic or static) pages will not be that big, using a CMS might be overkill.

>>
With a web hosting package, is a CMS included and all set up ready to go?
>>

the vast majority of web hosting providers out there will just give you a "naked" PHP&MySQL - system without any predefined CMS -- there are a handful of providers which might give you an advanced open source CMS like Joomla or Typo3 with many features...

>>
Are they easy to learn?
>>

...but even if so, those CMS systems mentioned above have a more or less steep learning curve. However, what I do know is: "Joomla" lets you include static pages very easily, and it´s notably easier to learn than Typo3 !

[Guest]

thats fab thanks, all much clearer now, but I might be back here asking questions when I start to implement!

Thank you

[Günter_Schenk]

oops -- I nearly forgot to mention that you can also build your own CMS with Dreamweaver itself ;-)

Much of what you´d need to accomplish (e.g. dynamic list & forms to manage your content) can be done with DW´s native tools, and some extra functionality (e.g. file upload, single/multiple image upload, including static files, integrating a WYSIWYG editor etc) is made available by several excellent extensions.

Though an external CMS like "Joomla" is somewhat familiar to me, I have in fact always written my own CMS systems using DW and some extensions, what gave me notably more freedom to decide what I want or not.

Speaking about DW extensions :: you´ll also discover some "external" CMS applications (open source/commercial) which even provide their own DW extension -- so, all in all, there´s plenty of options available which won´t even force you to leave your familar Dreamweaver environment.