[Project]Creation of websites through an application

spupazza

Hello everyone,
I need your advice on a university project. I wanted to create an application (website maker for example) to create websites for users who want to advertise an application created by them such as a Linux distribution or another, someone who does not know how to use html and then they want an easy solution, fast and customized to create the website.
My application must be able to select from a variety of layouts, themes, fonts for graphics Web site, the inclusion of additional pages in the same web site as a home-about-contact-download-buy, the insertion of images text-etc, a forum and various layouts, blogs, chat, wikis, purchase the product pages and so on.
I state that I have studied only a little html at the theoretical level, I would like advice on what programs I need to study to create this kind of application, if there are any link-guide-documentation and anything else that can help me in achieving the itself.
Thank you very much.

oeb

spupazza wrote: »

Hello everyone,
I need your advice on a university project. I wanted to create an application (website maker for example) to create websites for users who want to advertise an application created by them such as a Linux distribution or another, someone who does not know how to use html and then they want an easy solution, fast and customized to create the website.
My application must be able to select from a variety of layouts, themes, fonts for graphics Web site, the inclusion of additional pages in the same web site as a home-about-contact-download-buy, the insertion of images text-etc, a forum and various layouts, blogs, chat, wikis, purchase the product pages and so on.
I state that I have studied only a little html at the theoretical level, I would like advice on what programs I need to study to create this kind of application, if there are any link-guide-documentation and anything else that can help me in achieving the itself.
Thank you very much.

If you want it to be web based, you will need to know a server side scripting language. PHP, Python, Ruby, Perl or ASP.NET being the main ones.

You will also, depending on your approach need to know how to work directly with files through this language (to create html documents as you go) or maybe a better solution would be to use a database to store the relevant information. Personally I think you would be best off with a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySql & PHP) setup here, but to be honest, it's all personal prefrence. Any of the languages mentioned above are perfectly capeable of putting together something like this.

Myxomatosis

You could do a totally web based application.

Written in PHP, ASP.net or other server side language. This would allow easy generation of previews and live editing.

Either source from third parties or write your own components, i.e. the blog system, layouts, forum software, shopping cart etc.

The very core component of any website a user will be able to create from your "web site builder" will be a simple CSM (content management system) I would imagine.

So you'd need to write a simple CSM yourself or use an open source one (use a very lite one, minimal functionality).

You'll need to write it in such a way that the addition of blogs, shopping carts, forums etc is easy, easy enough for your automated builder to be able to handle.

The site builder, possibly a website, could be something as simple as a series of check boxes the user ticks to pick what components they want in their website. The builder could then modify snippets of code in the core component (CSM) to link/merge each of the selected components to it, and allow the user to download the resulting source code. Alternatively it could install the source code into a users folder on your server if you were planning on offering hosting as well.

Use of CSS will help greatly to keep the look of the separate components similar and easy switching of themes.

The builder itself could be written in any language, a desktop application if you wanted. All it's doing is linking, analyzing code and making the correct amendments so that each component works with the core component.

TBH, with your admittedly little HTML experience, I'd also assume you have little server side experience as well, your probably biting off more than you can chew, for a college project which most likely needs to be done before summer of this year?

spupazza

thanks all for the help!Yes the project is for next summer, but I'm not working so I think to have time to study a lot.
Any of you knows a similar project where I can get any ideas how to start?
all your suggestion were very helpful, I'm starting to figure out what to do. Thanks.

CuLT

spupazza wrote: »

thanks all for the help!Yes the project is for next summer, but I'm not working so I think to have time to study a lot.
Any of you knows a similar project where I can get any ideas how to start?

Google Page creator, perhaps.

oeb

You might also be able to find something useful in the relevant catagory at the PHP resource index

p

You need to work on your CSS & HTML for layout. That's certainly the easiest way to achieve different layouts and 'themes'. You can create 1 version of the HTML, and the apply different CSS files to achieve different layouts. With no experience of HTML or CSS it'll be a bit of a learning, but it's certainly a useful skill to have and should be quite fun.

G'luck!

spupazza

p wrote: »

You need to work on your CSS & HTML for layout. That's certainly the easiest way to achieve different layouts and 'themes'. You can create 1 version of the HTML, and the apply different CSS files to achieve different layouts. With no experience of HTML or CSS it'll be a bit of a learning, but it's certainly a useful skill to have and should be quite fun.

G'luck!

i started few wekks ago to study the basic html, and before I did some practice with html and CSS, so I think this would not be a big problem.
What I'm looking in more specific is how to create a web cms with the ability to insert forum, blog, wiki, IRC, etc..I'm looking for a guide or useful links.
Thanks all!;)

oeb

spupazza wrote: »

i started few wekks ago to study the basic html, and before I did some practice with html and CSS, so I think this would not be a big problem.
What I'm looking in more specific is how to create a web cms with the ability to insert forum, blog, wiki, IRC, etc..I'm looking for a guide or useful links.
Thanks all!;)

You will be hard pressed to find something that holds your hand through this, and rightly so. It should be about a learning experience rather than following a tutorial. But try breaking it down a bit first.

1. You want to have multiple options that a website client can switch on or off, for example, a wiki, what I can only presume is an IRC client, a blog etc. In addition to this there will also be standard pages.

Right, there are a number of approaches to this, but here is what I would do if I were you. Firstly, look into modules. Most PHP web applications out there use modules in one way shape of form. Joomala, Wordpress and Magento are just three examples. Here is the first result from google for 'PHP module system', it may be helpful to you.

2. You have to decide if you want to base this on another system(s) or write it from scratch.

Now, there are benifits to both ways, writing it from scratch will probably take longer in the long run. While a simple blog might be easy to put together, it is no simple task to implement a fully featured wiki from scratch. By using an existing system you face a steeper learning curve at the start, and if you take a system that does not require enough modification it might not be accecptible to use it. You could always try and go with a middle ground (A PHP Framework) such as Cake PHP or Zend Framework

I would also advise that you better evaluate what you are taking on here. This is by no means a small project, and it is certainly not something that I would recomend as a first project for someone. For an example of something out there that pretty much does what you are trying to do, I would suggest looking at Joomla, which is suitable for some of the features you want, and there is probably modules for some of the rest. That might give you a bit of idea with what you are getting yourself in for.

Even still, I would like to wish you best of luck with this, and should you have specific questions about any of the individual elements of your system, I will be happy to help you with them.

spupazza

Thank you very much oeb. I'm gathering all the information that I need to do this project, and then I'll valuate if I can or not.
If I have any specific question, I'll let you know. Thanks for all your help!:)