Provide your feedback on the main site (besides the patterns).
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By Zombie Pumpkins!
#97802
Geek out all you want. I'm glad to see you posting here. :thumbsup:

The main Zombie Pumpkins uses the CodeIgniter framework for PHP.

CodeIgniter is a toolkit for people who build web applications using PHP. Its goal is to enable you to develop projects much faster than you could if you were writing code from scratch, by providing a rich set of libraries for commonly needed tasks, as well as a simple interface and logical structure to access these libraries. CodeIgniter lets you creatively focus on your project by minimizing the amount of code needed for a given task.

CodeIgniter is based on the Model-View-Controller (MVC) development pattern. MVC is a software approach that separates application logic from presentation. In practice, it permits your web pages to contain minimal scripting since the presentation is separate from the PHP scripting.

  • The Model represents your data structures. Typically your model classes will contain functions that help you retrieve, insert, and update information in your database.
  • The View is the information that is being presented to a user. A View will normally be a web page, but in CodeIgniter, a view can also be a page fragment like a header or footer. It can also be an RSS page, or any other type of “page”.
  • The Controller serves as an intermediary between the Model, the View, and any other resources needed to process the HTTP request and generate a web page.

So the "views" are the pages I need to edit each year (the content you see) while the "models" and "controllers" that operate the functionality behind-the-scenes can remain largely the same. Some commonplace functions use the built-in scripts, but a whole lot of database functionality has been custom coded for Zombie Pumpkins over the years.

Each Halloween season I redesign the site from scratch, in the sense that the layout code for the "views" is rewritten. But the content is separate from the presentation. So this means I annually replace the header, footer, menus and style sheets (to "reskin" the site) but the core text/image content will always be there to pop into the new layout template.
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By mesmark
#97815
Thanks for the info! It was very helpful. Actually, I got really excited. :thumbsup:

Then, I read more about it on the site ... It works like most other CMS systems. Which is not bad really and this program seems a like a simple but powerful choice. I might try it for one of my sites and see how it runs.

WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal are also free and have a rich library of extensions and tools. Those use the same MCV idea. Pretty much any feature that you'd like to add, someone has coded a module for that. It's nice but I feel a little trapped when I have to make my websites on the server. I really prefer to control the pages, files and then upload those changes. It may just be an old habit that I need to break.

I finished one site in Drupal, but I've messed up the program backend a bit with some messed up installs. And I can't get the site back-up tools too work :arrowhead:

But that site is small and took just a week to completely rebuild. But, I need to really get better if I'm going to do my others.
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User avatar
By mesmark
#99477
I found a different solution for what I'm doing. I used a CSS styling sheet, like Bootstrap, but a little lighter. It lets me simplify the CSS coding and I don't need to work within the admin/control panel deal. I can control the look, mobile responsive side, and feel of the content and navigation straight from a site-wide header file. The content for each page is fed in with individual php pages, so it works in pretty much the same way as the CMS. But I don't need a database and I can just drag and drop the site on a new server if I ever wish to move.

So, basically I found a way to cheat and move forward without any personal growth :P

(Actually, I'm working on learning JavaScript. I need that for setting up some printing and worksheet making programs. So, I don't have much time right now for messing around with the actual site code.)

I've updated 5 sites so far. Just 5 more to go ... :poop: