Chris's AGI Web Site Goes PHP

[Chris Cromer]

Well I have done a complete layout change for my site and switched from html to php. Before I put it up though I would like for yall to test it out tell me what yall think and tell me of any problems/bugs you find. The test site is at http://www.agigames.com/phpsite/

Also please give me any comments you may have on it.

[Nick Sonneveld]

The site looks very nice and it's tidier with no frames.

Does it make it easier for you to maintain?  I've been playing with the idea of moving my site to some sort of database format (but only on my side.. I would still upload static pages) only to simplify adding more content.

- Nick

[Mokalus of Borg]

I use the local-database-generation-and-static-upload method for two of the websites I maintain, and I'm NEVER going back to flat HTML. You can't make me! Nyah!
Ahem. I personally find it much easier to maintain generated pages than static ones, simply because I can't keep everything in my head, but the scripts know where all the relevant bits go. It's released much needed time and brainpower for other things.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'm still designing and creating further generation extensions for these sites.
PPS - I really do highly recommend it.

[Nick Sonneveld]

well I didn't want to go through the hassle of copying and pasting headers/footers so I use a script called gtml that lets me insert files.. but it's pretty simple and doesn't work all the time..

plus I want to store some info in a database as well

- Nick

[df]

i run 'my' site that way

(check http://www.mega-tokyo.com/me)

(check out the london stuff, thats a nice example of the system).

all nicely written in php, I've evolved it from its original over about 2 years (ie: look at a script for 5 minutes every 6 months...   )

[Chris Cromer]

I got a few complaits about the frames... so I decided I would get rid of them. This php version of my site is much easier to update because all the headers and footers are contained within site.php while the rest of the content is stored within a few different files that are called upon to get the content that needs to be displayed. I put up my source at http://www.agigames.com/php.zip in case anyone would like to take a look at how it works. After I get this completly finished and put up for my main site I am going to try to learn more php and make my site more interactive with it's users... maybe even some integration with my chat room as well.

[Chris Cromer]

Also df, I noticed you don't have a error message in place incase the users decide to try to visit a page that don't exsist. For example at my php version of my site above go into the Sierra's AGI Games and select an AGI game(other than Black Cauldron) and a nice little custom message will appear if the page hasn't been created yet or just doesn't exist. I would try adding that. You can use the source of my site if you want to take a look at how it is done.

Also I was wondering, what is the differences between php and php3 like you used?

[Brian Provinciano]

I couldn't help but notice you say on your site "I have changed the name of my site to The Ultimate AGI Web Site because it sounds more proffesional than Chris's AGI Web Site".

Since my site is The Ultimate AGI & SCI Web Site, this would really confuse people. It's confusing enough since my site's nick name is "AGISCI" and your nick name is "AGISCI".

[Chris Cromer]

I just used to use "AGISCI" as a nick name. I was a little bit paranoid about letting people know my real name but I am a little bit better with it now as you can see by my real name in my signature. Do you think changing my username to "Chris" or "Chris Cromer" would be a better thing to do? Or maybe "AGI" I wonder if "AGI" is still available at this board?

What you are reading about "The Ultimate AGI Web Site" is old news from my site... I prefer to keep a sort of history of my site to let the users see how it has grown and changed over time. I think the whole Ultimate AGI Site move was just a stupid move for me to have made, so sorry about that. I didn't think more about it before I actually went through with it. The site did change back to Chris's AGI Web Site very soon after though. And don't worry I won't make any more name changes.

[Andrew_Baker]

I visited your site recently and didn't notice any errors.  I'm also glad you got rid of frames, because I hate them with an undisclosed amount of passion.

I don't know, C(h)ris, you might want to keep the nickname AGISCI:  it sounds like some sort of manganime character.

e.g., Agisci unleashes the whirling star storm attack!  Kaaa-Chinng!

P.S.--  The only reason I use the handle "failrate" on some boards is because my actual name is taken so often (hence failrate@hotmail.com and http://userweb.springnet1.com/failrate) that I had to make up an online persona.

P.P.S.--  Again, your site looks great.

[Nailhead]

Since we are on the subject of PHP, I can recommend PHP-Nuke as a content management system as I'm currently running a "nuked" site and it's very efficient and easy to maintain and fast too as it's backed by MySQL. Nick, I'd suggest using something of this sort to maintain AGIDev.com as it would create a community of users and allow users to submit news articles and be a really great AGI Portal site. Of course, maybe that's not what AGIDev.com is all about but it is a good idea for someone who would want to create such a beast.

http://www.phpnuke.org

[df]

phpnuke uses LOTS of bandwidth. if you have a limit on your bandwidth, dont use phpnuke or its offspring. there are other 'portal' type systems that use less.

[Chris Cromer]

I guess phpnuke is out of the question for me... I do have bandwidth restrictions.