php, coldfusion and general web development waffle

[luke]

so, i've somehow been blagged into helping a local charity finish of their web site. no worries, except it's all been done using php - which i've never used ( i use coldfusion )

i was just going to install it on my iis setup, but i'm not sure what version i need - the 'Non Thread Safe' or the 'Thread Safe' version?

anyone know?!

http://windows.php.net/download/

i'm sure i'll have plenty more questions over the next week

[faceless]

are they using a php portal system for the site?

Once you know what that is, you can usually find plenty of hack sites etc.

[luke]

they've got some sort of php cms that allows them to edit the pages, but until i can get php installed i can't do anything

do you know the difference between the thread safe and non thread safe versions of php?

why can't everyone just use coldfusion, its so much easier

[faceless]

If you download one of their php pages it should say what the CMS is, so that will make things easier.

Are you planning to do a complete revamp of the site though? If not, I don't think you really need to get php installed. I don't have it here, though if I did I'd do it within a Virtual PC.

Normally I just edit the php files using my normal text editor (pspad). If I'm doing something that's new, I'll just upload the file to the server and test live.

[luke]

no, i'm not going to redo the whole site - if i did i'd just do it in coldfusion! it just needs some tweaking here and there and some new pages, nothing major

i've been meaning to learn php for a while, so i don't mind installing it, and i prefer testing it locally. i've already got iis setup with coldfusion so it shouldn't be difficult to get php running as well.

i found this article;

Difference between PHP thread safe and non thread safe binaries

[faceless]

The most important things in learning php are learning how to inject and extract info from the database.

I meant to say that I wasn't sure about the threaded v non-threaded idea. But I see the point now. As far as I can tell, it's not really relevant unless the site is very busy and require as much stream-lining as possible.

What CMS are they using?

[major.tom]

"Thread safe" refers to how it interacts with the O/S in a multi-user environment. Since I didn't know what effect this would have (if any) on the syntax, I did a quick google search which brought back this.

conclusion: If you're not using CGI, you should be fine with the thread-safe binaries

Are you working directly at the website host (I cringe to think their using windows/iis) or just developing on your own windows PC?

[luke]

yeah thats the same link i found, i'm going to try the thread safe version ... hopefully it'll be alright

i'm developing it on my windows pc major, i have iis setup already because i need it for coldfusion, plus they don't even have the hosting or domain sorted yet

why do you cringe of a windows/iis setup? one of the servers i use for hosting is a windows/iis with cold fusion and its very rare theres any trouble

[Brown Sauce]

install xammp Luke, I've been doing wordpress stuff for a while,

http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html

when you find out what cms they're using, if it ain't wordpress ask 'em why


edit

If it's drupal give it to someone else ...

[luke]

thanks sauce, that looks interesting - and coldfusion should run on apache too - i'll check out wordpress as well

[Brown Sauce]

if you need any help with wordpress gi me a shout ..

[luke]

i've got php working on my iis setup and i've had a quick look at whats going on with the site ... it doesn't appear there is a database. it uses something called tinymce which then saves the results through php as a .html page - although the editor comes up blank when i try do do anything with it ... it adds adds header and footer info to the .html page and displays in a iframe

i can view whats there, i just can't edit anything with tinymce at the moment until i work out why its coming out blank ...

[major.tom]

[luke]

i was having no joy getting php to load up tinymce with the pages to edit under iis, so i installed xampp, and it worked first time thanks sauce

now i can actually start the work!

[Brown Sauce]

that's good ..