Any Web Development Pros out there? Random question

[LarBrd33]

Just figured I'd ask.  I'm stumped on something.

The extent of my web development skills are basically... I know some html, can usually successfully tweak php templates, I own a couple domains that I host on 1and1 and have installed wordpress blogs and forums based on MySQL.  My design skills are pretty much garbage though, I usually just find some nice looking template and figure out how to customize it.   For example:  I created this little cake blog for my girlfriend last month:  http://www.cakekitty.com

So that's my knowledge level.

So I have an idea for a website that is kind of abstract...  so I will simplify my question as a hypothetical.

Say I owned my own basketball league and I wanted a website where you could see all the player stats in the league... points, rebounds, steals, assists, etc.  Say I want the user to have the ability to sort by points, rebounds, etc... Say I want the user to have the ability to filter the results like (Only show players who have scored over 500 points) ... The ability to click on a player's profile to see his stats, etc.   

Obviously I'm just talking about a database... I probably could whip that up in Excel or MS Access...    But what I'm wondering is if there is some kind of open source online engine (wordpress-esque ease of use) for creating, managing and DISPLAYING the data on the website.   

Any ideas?

[Redz]

I'm not sure about how to embed the info, but as far as sharing data etc, GoogleDocs woould work for public hosting of a spreadsheet.

[chris_fanfeedr]

I'm more of a Python guy and I'm not sure exactly what you're looking for but something like this could help: http://cakephp.org/

You'd then want to use something called an ORM, which is bundled with Cake. The idea of an ORM is to pretty much eliminate the need to manually make SQL queries. So you could write some code like:

Player.objects.order_by("-points") (Python style, get all players ordered by points)

instead of:

SELECT * FROM player ORDER BY points DESC

Then to filter content, you'd want a url like:

yoursite.com/get_stats?start=0&row=50&filter=points

Then pass the 0 and 50 into your ORM/SQL query. This probably wasn't what you're looking for but what you're doing is pretty complex for someone without a lot of experience.

[bMunch]

Since you're relatively familiar with WordPress you could use a plugin for displaying tabular data. eg: http://bit.ly/r2dKWz

Or use a Custom Post Type in order to help author this data. There are plugins for that too: see http://bit.ly/9XamU and http://bit.ly/cbwhhD

[LarBrd33]

Since you're relatively familiar with WordPress you could use a plugin for displaying tabular data. eg: http://bit.ly/r2dKWz

Or use a Custom Post Type in order to help author this data. There are plugins for that too: see http://bit.ly/9XamU and http://bit.ly/cbwhhD

That WP-Table Reloaded plugin might actually work for what I want to do.  Seems like it's simply enough that I could figure it out.  Thanks. 

I appreciate the help guys. 

[kgiessler]

Knowing that you are already looking for sorts and filters and you are just getting started, I would say you've got big plans for customization.

phpmyadmin is a tool designed to administer/manage a MySQL db so you don't necessarily have to write the sql statements like chris_fanfeedr did. It's widely used and very popular.

While this will allow *you* to see the data and do those sort/filter functions, its probably not a wise choice to set it up somehow for an end user's front end, because I'm sure it will give them more power than you want to give them (drop tables, etc).

[Kiorrik]

Funny, I'm actually working on some projects that will include the same type of functionality, as well as hosting tournament brackets and ladders based on the ELO system.

Anyhoo, if you're up for some learning, take a dive into Drupal. It's not the easiest CMS to get the hang of, but it's powerful like nothing you've ever seen. Between the "views" module, the "node reference" module and the standard "taxonomy" module (that last one is included in the Drupal core), you should already be able to build exactly what you're describing. And it won't take you months.

However, like I mentioned, it will require some effort. Drupal is a very, very powerful system, but has quite a steep learning curve.

It would help if you knew someone who's already delved deep into Drupal



.edit: I can't stress this enough though: Drupal is POWERFUL.

Powerful.

POWERRRRRR...


(I'll stop now)