James
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Registered: 1st Jun 02
Location: Surrey
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My housemate wants to write a forum in PHP from scratch for part of her final year project at uni.
Obviously to get the best marks she cant just use a package like PHPBB, she wants to write it from scratch.
Is it just a case of having shit loads of database tables and querying the database and ensuring the output is formatted to look nice?
Or is there more to it than that - I get the impression there is.
Cheers,
James
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Ian
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Registered: 28th Aug 99
Location: Liverpool
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You did sum it up - loads of tables and loads of scripts.
Sounds easy but it is actually lots of stuff. If she's writing PHP/MySQL can she not go out the box a little and do something funky and useful like new features for existing baord. There are load of big programming challenges that I want to add to here - proper search that uses MySQL fulltext but isn't rubbish, more proximity stuff, I will licence my postcode table for educational use 
There's more acadmic stuff as well, data mining to get knowledge base type information from a set of posts, non-linear representation of work links, graphical buddy list which is like a galaxy, everone is a planet and their buddies are moons and when you go to a moon it has other moons which are other people etc. Nice bit of flash that.
http://www.corsasport.co.uk/board/viewthread.php?tid=240264
Can plot anything once you have complete postcode data set, just SQL join with your members table as I have there, wireless hotspots table, Vauxhall dealers table, whatever (this is coming btw so don't make her do that twice)
http://www.visualthesaurus.com/
Like I say, there's some mileage is more innovative stuff, doesn't even have to work well, just get the ideas going. I've no objection at all to suppying her with a bit of data so long as I've some firm assurances that its for research purposes and she doesn't go an launch Corsa Sport 2 hahaha
[Edited on 02-11-2005 by Ian]
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James
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Registered: 1st Jun 02
Location: Surrey
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Hmmm im not sure - shes doing a multimedia course - the forum was more of an additional part of the project - didnt want it to take too long.
Shes building a flash application which will then be linked to an access database that stores details about beaches on the south coast and the surfing conditions at each. This will be effectively handed out as standalone media on a CD
She wants the forum to back it up so she can provide a link on the application for users to access it, the flash is the main bit - the forum just an extra.
I like this postcode/map idea. Could be good for users finding out where they are in relation to certain beaches.
As it will probably be me that helps her with the majority of the forum stuff - is it easy to implement? Is it pure PHP and MySQL? I'm an ASP.Net/C#.Net man myself but I think it will look more like all her own work if I use PHP.
[Edited on 02-11-2005 by James]
[Edited on 02-11-2005 by James]
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Ian
Site Administrator
Registered: 28th Aug 99
Location: Liverpool
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Data driven Flash - good choice.
Did you look at Visual Thesaurus. Its amazing.
Don't give the data out on CD either - needs to be a web app so you have live data.
http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/data/Data
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Ian
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Registered: 28th Aug 99
Location: Liverpool
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ps. don't do anything that is already out there.
http://www.surfshacks.co.uk/
Just put new Location code live as well, have a look at that. The proximity stuff is all pythagoras and the direction of travel is arcsine trigonometry. You need this.
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James
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Registered: 1st Jun 02
Location: Surrey
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quote:
Originally posted by Ian
Don't give the data out on CD either - needs to be a web app so you have live data.
Thats exactly the first thing I said to her but apparently the data shes using wont change? Not quite sure how that works 
Do you know much about data driven flash? Ive dabbled in flash and actionscript before but never connected to a database.
I saw Flash mx remoting which seems to be some kind of database add-on. A website with a step by step guide would be good
Also any other general tips? If I remember rightly your a lecturer so you might know what sort of thing they are looking for e.g. what makes a project stand out from others etc....
Thanks for all your help by the way - and dont worry about her making corsasport 2!!
Ill come up with a better name than that
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Ian
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Registered: 28th Aug 99
Location: Liverpool
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Data not changing really undermines the power of making it data driven. May as well have a load of tweens or something.
Doing cool stuff with data is good, doing cool stuff with live data is top of the league. So far as where the marks are, this is really how she wants to be thinking, not write a CD and post it to someones house. Thats just a Flash movie with some technology behind it, not the academic conjunction of a load of technology for research purposes. I would sooner mark the latter.
Just Letters is a db driven Flash app - http://web.okaygo.co.uk/apps/letters/flashcom/
This is also multi-user interactive, again, stepped up a gear.
Never played with it myself but that is least of the problems, the discussion is in the vision, not the end result. Most uni projects don't work and almost all don't do what was designed in the first place. The good ones evaluate as to why there wasn't enough time, and this is no less attractive from an assessment point of view than a small project which was finished and fully functional.
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James
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Registered: 1st Jun 02
Location: Surrey
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She wanted to do it as a web app originally but her tutor advised her to do it as a CD-ROM  Apparently the main focus is multimedia - i.e having lots of videos, sound clips etc...... Much more effective running off a CD, I see where your coming from with live data being better but if im honest I think her tutors dont have a fucking clue - but as they are marking it - I guess its best to do what they suggest
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Ian
Site Administrator
Registered: 28th Aug 99
Location: Liverpool
User status: Offline
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If its a Multimedia degree then yeah, their call.
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