SMLP Learning PHP: February 2009

Wednesday 25 February 2009

Week 3 - 18-25th Feb

Evaluating ideas and creating a simple interactive media product that utilises PHP5

This week was all about reflecting on design and realising I could do a better job. I looked into many ways of integrating a PHP slideshow that used arrays to rotate a new image every time the site was visited however, after showing this to my parents they explained they would prefer it to display images as a slideshow like their LCD frame.

Unfortunately trying to use arrays without an automatic refresh of the page seemed impossible with my limited knowledge of PHP. This would have been a problem, but because I have a feedback form on the same page, every time someone would start to complete it the page would refresh and everything they imputed would disappear. To solve the issue, I felt it necessary to use JavaScript but then couldn’t adjust the positioning of the images. Thankfully after posting my problems on a forum a nice chap from the Netherlands assisted me and all my problems were solved, I just wished I had visited a forum earlier than I would not have been frustrated for several hours. (M3) (Steve: see actual printouts in sketchbook)

Despite my initial design being a success, I felt it was too dark and only when my parents saw the new curved design did they agree. Although I was happy with the design, I still felt it could be improved. With a name that suggests people wandering aimlessly about the countryside what better image than to use footprints walking in many directions as a background. Excited at the prospect of designing a better looking website, I altered the logo back to the original footprint idea, as I felt it had a better relationship with the background. (D3)

18^th Feb
Investigated ways of uploading images and saving them as a gallery, looked on zigzag

20^th Feb

Designing Website – Initial sketches in sketch book

Reflecting on Designs

21^st Feb

Actual feedback and development of rollovers
Developing the website

22^nd Feb
Problem with PHP Slideshow

23^rd Feb

Defining the structure of the website
Plan of action
Re-designing the website

24^th Feb
Resolving the problem with the PHP slideshow

Wednesday 18 February 2009

Week 2 - 11-18th Feb

Planning and designing a simple interactive media product that utilises PHP5

After creating a learning plan and technical specification for the Interactive Media project, I was now ready to start planning and design.

For weeks now, I have been milling over ideas for a logo for Weekend Wanderers. Do I use the tread as two W’s or the W’s as the hills and paths?. I decided to work up both ideas into vector and then into screen designs. I finally chose the two W’s idea of hills and paths because I felt that it might work better across different formats.

With a name already for the walking club established many years ago, I now had to see if it was available as a Domain. Following my investigations using WHOIS I found www.weekendwanderers.org.uk was available but www.weekendwanderers.co.uk wasn’t. Picking a host to upload the website might have been easy, if I didn’t have to consider MySQL and PHP, this meant that the hosting would cost more money.

After confirming the domain name with my parents we discussed the website in more detail especially how they would receive enquires from potential new walkers. The outcome of this discussion meant that they felt they wouldn’t have enough content for a page every month and would prefer just one page detailing the annual walking programme. They felt the contact form should appear on every page but would prefer to make space for a gallery page and have the contact form as a link. Although I didn’t want to discourage my parent’s suggestion of a photography gallery this was something I could add later, but felt having the contact page on some pages as a link was a great idea.

12^th Feb
Following youtube tutorials

17^th February

Tried MAMP didn’t work - Xampp worked
Developed the logo design today in vectors

Creating website screen designs

Innovation and create thought have been applied (D3)
Logo development, colour layout and typeface choice

Reflect on on-line Videos and tutorials (M2) (D2)
Setting up PHP on my Computer

Identify a simple PHP function
why the form function will be useful

Plan how to integrate a basic function PHP into an interactive media project
explain about hosting requirement

Wednesday 11 February 2009

Week 1 - 27th Jan - 11th Feb

Developing the skills required for creating an interactive media product that contains PHP5 (M2) (D2)

This week, I introduced myself to PHP and wish I had picked flash as my self managed learning task instead. Little did I realise that before I could start creating PHP, I would need to create a local testing server and download PHP. Thankfully after a few failed attempts, I created the testing environment by using XAMPP. I realised that in order to use PHP to its full potential I would need a MySQL database, at this point I really did get confused.

The problem I faced was how could I possibly create a Learning Plan and develop a technical specification knowing nothing about PHP or MySQL.

After watching a few videos on PHP and taking notes, I began playing with Variables, Arrays and If Else statements, although I found this experience very useful, I couldn’t quite understand how I could use what I had learnt in the real world situation until stumbling upon the HTML form with PHP

Thankfully by choosing to develop a website for my Parents walking club gave me the perfect opportunity to integrate a PHP feedback form. Following an initial meeting with my parents, I drafted a learning plan and created technical specification.

Although I am happy, I have decided that I will include a PHP feedback form that links mailing a reply via email. I might regret I did not do something more challenging later.