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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Mac OS X & LAMP server integration

scrimmage - Aug 9, 2006 - 3:24 am

Hi

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this question - if it isn't can you point me in the right direction?

I'm taking the first steps in trying to make our band website more easily updateable. We have a large amount of record reviews that increases daily and it's very difficult to keep them up to date by editing html pages in Dreamweaver. Ditto, our news section. I suspect it'd be better to go for some database driven solution.

My Mac has Apache, MySql and PHP set up ok. The band website is hosted by an ISP on a LAMP server.

I've got (and use) Filemaker Pro 7 on my Mac and could easily set up a reviews and/or news database.

1. What's the best way of connecting up my desktop database to the MySql database on my ISP's server?

2. Is there a way of updating my Filemaker database and the changes appearing instantly on the server?

3. I've come across a piece of Mac OS X database software that is based on php/sql - but can't remember the name of it! Should I be thinking of using that instead?

As you can tell I sort of know what I want to do but need some clear mac friendly guidance on which way to go!

Thanks

adam

frozendice - Aug 9, 2006 - 4:51 pm

Thanks for coming to macosx.com.

I am not sure if you are aware but your situation might benifit from using a CMS(Content Management System).

This is good because it provides a web interface to update changes, simply. It also allows multiple authors, whoever you authorise to edit articles, or reviews. I'm not sure exactly what mods you would need to work reviews, but you should check out Joomla. The people over at the forums http://forum.joomla.org/ might be able to offer more insight.

As per your question, why are you working on 2 different servers. Why not just point directly to the live server you are using and keep backups?

- Aug 9, 2006 - 9:06 pm

Thanks for coming to macosx.com.

I am not sure if you are aware but your situation might benifit from using a CMS(Content Management System).

This is good because it provides a web interface to update changes, simply. It also allows multiple authors, whoever you authorise to edit articles, or reviews. I'm not sure exactly what mods you would need to work reviews, but you should check out Joomla. The people over at the forums http://forum.joomla.org/ might be able to offer more insight.

As per your question, why are you working on 2 different servers. Why not just point directly to the live server you are using and keep backups?

- Aug 10, 2006 - 4:23 am

Hi

Thanks very much for the swift reply - much appreciated.

I have looked into using a CMS (including Joomla. Mambo, WordPress etc) but decided against it because our site design is a bit idioscyncratic and the optiions for the visual design of a CMS based system seemed a bit limiting. Our design doesn't use the traditional two/three columns, sidebar, header and footer convention and the page designs aren't uniform.

With all of that in mind, I thought that the best way to go would be to design in Dreamweaver and drop PHP/MySQL driven content into portions of an html page - using the PHP include function. In theory, that makes sense to me - but I've never done it. Am I barking up the wrong tree?

Why am I planning on working on two different servers? Ignorance probably! I just thought the simplest thing to do would be to use Filemaker to enter in my data (i.e. reviews) on my Mac and then export/connect it to a MySQL database on my ISP's server. On reflection, that does sound a bit convoluted...!

If I wanted to do my data entry on my ISP's server, I presume I'd have to construct some sort of browser based date input screen? I've looked at DaDaBik for this way of doing it

As you can tell all of this workflow stuff rather hurts my head! I suppose I need someone to say "no, don't do it like that, do it like this - it's much less fiddly" before I get halfway through learning how to do it one way and only then discover I should have taken another route.

- Aug 11, 2006 - 2:37 am

hi again

received an email saying you needed a response or else my ticket would be closed. responded yesterday and just in case you didn't receive it, here it is again...


Hi

Thanks very much for the swift reply - much appreciated.

I have looked into using a CMS (including Joomla. Mambo, WordPress etc) but decided against it because our site design is a bit idioscyncratic and the optiions for the visual design of a CMS based system seemed a bit limiting. Our design doesn't use the traditional two/three columns, sidebar, header and footer convention and the page designs aren't uniform.

With all of that in mind, I thought that the best way to go would be to design in Dreamweaver and drop PHP/MySQL driven content into portions of an html page - using the PHP include function. In theory, that makes sense to me - but I've never done it. Am I barking up the wrong tree?

Why am I planning on working on two different servers? Ignorance probably! I just thought the simplest thing to do would be to use Filemaker to enter in my data (i.e. reviews) on my Mac and then export/connect it to a MySQL database on my ISP's server. On reflection, that does sound a bit convoluted...!

If I wanted to do my data entry on my ISP's server, I presume I'd have to construct some sort of browser based date input screen? I've looked at DaDaBik for this way of doing it

As you can tell all of this workflow stuff rather hurts my head! I suppose I need someone to say "no, don't do it like that, do it like this - it's much less fiddly" before I get halfway through learning how to do it one way and only then discover I should have taken another route.