Web Information Processing

Lately in college I've come to realise exactly how much time and effort goes into developing a website. I always assumed that the design and layout of the pages would be the hardest part- How wrong could I have been.

I am currently involved in a group project where we are developing a community portal website ("CommunityYOUnity"- Great name, right, guess who came up with it ?!). Having spent multiple weeks designing the layout of our website I was pretty happy with our progress and thought we were getting along great and making good time. How wrong could I have been...

The next step in the development is to make sure that every page is editable. The way the site will work is that guests can register as members. The members can then edit their 'profile page' with their details, a small bio and a picture. These guests can then create a profile page for their organisation (They then become 'super-users' in regards to that page) which is editable in the same way as profile pages, or they can browse the organisations and choose which ones to volunteer for. Each organisation's page will have a large 'VOLUNTEER!' button where the registered user can become a member of this organisation's group and receive updates and also have access to a mailing list.

Unfortunately, no one in my group (including me!) have any clue as to how to start this process. Up until now we have been coding in HTML and CSS (I have used my exquisite HTML skills to format this post: See how my image is the full width of the page?!). The next step in the development will require the implementation of PHP and the use of databases with SQL commands. Today, as a first look at PHP I have edited the homepage so it now prints to-days date when you arrive on it (Except I can't get it to work!!).

This week will be spent trying to create databases for the site and to integrate these with PHP used in the coding of the pages. I also have a solo project due in three weeks which will similarly require this knowledge. Any ideas as to what I should base my solo web development project on are greatly appreciated!

If you wish to view the website while under development it is currently hosted at this address:
http://webcourse.cs.nuim.ie/20112012/CS230/CS230groupA2012/
Although you may need an NUIM username and password to access it, sorry!