[PHP/MySQL] Automatic page generator/creator

Hey all,

Been swamped with jobs/school/projects, and recently I've been asked to do another project which involves building an automatic page generation tool for the "news" part of a website (for page search purposes). I'm quite experienced in dynamic page/content generation (recently created a web-based administration backend for a laboratory), but automating page creation is something new to me. Each news article basically needs its own HTML page.

1. So basically I'm creating a form, where a user can enter a news article, its title, and some other information - no problem.
2. Next I'll have to embed html structure tags for creating a valid HTML page - no problem, I'm looking into mooTools and have found a script which does something like this.
3. Lastly, submit button is clicked, and a new HTML page is supposed to be created from all of the information entered + embedded tags from step 2 - This is where I have a problem. I have very limited experience in file i/o and uploads.

Does anyone here have any experience in this? I've tried googling for examples, but returned emptyhanded. Any help is greatly appreciated!


- Mett

Based on your description, I don't really understand why you have to create an HTML page for each news article. Is the user expected to do something with the html page afterwards?

Hmm, can't that be done using fancy mod_rewite and one php file?

quote Benedict

Hmm, can't that be done using fancy mod_rewite and one php file?

Yes. You'll just want one 'news.php' file which fetches the data from MySQL based on a unique identifier. Your search function can search the database, and you can use pretty URL's so Google picks each entry up.

hi, sorry to be a bother but im making my first PHP website (at 15, which is somewhat 'cool') and I really need help knowing how to set it up. I am trying to make a website which connects to facebook (done), and its able to create little websites that other people create and theyre able to like (not done) which they just write something in a textbox and it creates a page. I was thinking it would use a base webpage and then with the php code, it would create multiple ones with the different things people write.

Thanks
(Sorry for my hard to understand ramblings)

Thanks for the link, im looking through it now.
But at the moment all I really need help in is basically doing what he's doing in the "news.php" because I already got the mySQL page ready. If you could be so helpful and just help me out in that, I would be really thankful for it .

yea, well im working right now with my "first" real server. I FTP the info through dreaweaver, and it shows up on the site (noob talk xD). Well, I already have most of the website layout ready (www.ilovefb.co.cc) but Im stuck at the part when any user can create their own sayings (click on it, it just goes back to the post.php) and thats basically what ive got at the moment. I looked at this thread and I figured I need basically the 'news.php' file he uses but it should create a different file. just like Liam said to mettaur, I wanna create a mySQL database with id's which the template.php file can just pick the file when someone goes on the site (www.ilovefb.co.cc/template.php?id=XX) and with the ID, the site just changes what is needed to change.

What exactly do you need help with? You are trying to create a dynamic 'GET' style page from what I can tell, with the GET identifying a specific individual (...&ID=X); the ID identifies an individual in a MySQL database, fetches information from the DB, and dynamically generates a page based on the info stored in the DB. I can almost certainly help you, start to finish; but there is are several things going on there. You need a form for the user to input their sayings, or whatever you are trying to record, and the "template page" as you call it, to generate the dynamic content. If you want the user to be able to come back later and edit that content, you are also going to need a 'registration' type page, and a login script so you can uniquely identify that user later. What are you having problems with; or what do you have so far?

ahhhhh...just realized how old this thread is; oh well.