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Looking for someone to tweak my website

  • 01-07-2015 03:40AM
    #1
    intbn
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 96 ✭✭


    Hello all and let me firstly say thank you very much in advance to anyone who can advise me on this topic.
    Secondly, my apologies, it's not a "website" as such at the moment, it's a bit of webspace I have with an upload of a spreadsheet file converted into html with a list of oldskool dance vinyl from the 90s that I am selling.

    I sell my vinyl on discogs.com and find at the moment the site is lacking in features that could make browsing a lot easier for buyers i.e. youtube video links to preview the song(s) from these vinyl.

    So here's what I've got so far:
    http://tinyurl.com/ppugosa
    (csv spreadsheet file rather crudely converted to html)

    I know rolleyes.png As you can see, the 10th column is a field for displaying comments, I have got my youtube URLs in this box after my comments, what I want to do is simply have a seperate frame/pane at the top or bottom to display these videos so my customers can listen to the vinyl conveniently as they browse the list.

    I did a quick mock up using <a href code, loading them into a seperate frame to test out my idea and it doesn't work because apparently youtube won't let you load their site in a frame(I can understand they probably have their reasons).
    Then I was thinking of going down the route of converting the URLs to iframe embedded videos, then realised that if a user is loading a page with 100s of embedded youtube videos all at once, it will probably crash their web browser.
    Also, I've seen that a lot of the time, embedded videos display a message saying, the owner of this video does not allow it to be embedded.

    So, I need:

    -To find a code that will display these videos in another frame, whether it be by means of displaying an embedded video in another frame by "passing" the video ID code or URL to that frame, so be it, as long as I can get it to load for all youtube videos.

    -And also, I need an executable file(or a batch file for example) that I can use to run a script on my existing database file which will convert all the these existing youtube URLs into the newly proposed code that will pass the video id(or whatever the solution), to the frame.

    I know it might seem like I'm doing this a bit backwards but the database file I have is huge(about 500 vinyl at the moment and growing) and more importantly, this file will be downloaded on a daily basis(at least) from discogs.com and uploaded to my own site(after converting using the batch or executable) to make sure that any vinyl from the list that has been marked sold or draft(on old) from the discogs site will be updated on my site too.

    Lastly, this is just a cheap & cheerful setup at the moment(a place to refer all my existing customers for an easier/faster browsing experience), I appreciate all advice offered and would give this a go myself if anyone is willing to give me the advice(I do know some BASIC(the language), know a lot of DOS commands and how to adapt/manipulate them:D and know how to do a bit of html too) however I'm keen on finding someone who is interested in doing this for me, not for free of course(and maybe like minded/interested in oldskool house, trance, techno etc, like minds and all that), and as my sales pick up from it, I will be looking to actually develop it into a website to make it easier to use and more flexible(so users can sort by artist, title, year, price, condition etc and maybe add a paypal shopping cart etc etc,, i've a list the length of me arm of ideas)


    Thanks all,

    Patrick


Comments

  • #2
    devildriver
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 874 ✭✭✭devildriver


    Hi Patrick,

    What you really need here is a database-driven website. If the information you posted is available in a compatible format or can be converted into xml then it would be relatively straightforward to import it into a database on top of which you can build your site.

    Please forget about frames - they are no longer acceptable on the modern web. Forget also about basic and DOS. This is a web job so html5 and css3 are the technologies that are most relevant.

    The problem is that you will need a budget to do this and if this is just a hobby it may not be financially feasible or desirable to go to that expense.

    If on the other hand you approach this as a business then a properly built and designed the site could easily cater for other collectors selling their records.

    Hope that helps.


  • #3
    intbn
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 96 ✭✭intbn


    devildriver, much appreciated, that does help, I did have an idea they might have been outdated alright, but if they work, that'll do for now, I mean I can appreciate there's probably a lot better ways of doing things now days and that's how I'd like to do a full launch but this is simply just a place to go for my customers to have the convenience that the other website I sell on does not have, I definitely don't have the finances to launch a full website yet, I'm hoping to meet a freelance web designer/developer that can get this rolling(not for free like I said) and then discuss what's needed for a full launch and when I've got it going for a month or so, I'll have the funds to implement it with a proper launch.

    I do have the database file in csv format and as far as I know they can be converted easily enough to xml, I've already converted it to xls and html.

    If however I do find a solution in the meantime, I'll post up for anyone else interested to know


  • #4
    daymobrew
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,683 ✭✭✭daymobrew


    As I use WordPress for everything I would import the file into WordPress with most of the info put into custom fields (via the Advanced Custom Fields plugin).

    There are plugins that import CSV files so that would not be too difficult.
    The layout of the listings would be your choice as the front end could be customised.


  • #5
    Buford T Justice
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,272 ✭✭✭Buford T Justice


    Swings and roundabouts here, but I don't use wordpress, but a PHP framework, and what you're asking for is simple enough. Whip up a DB and some views to sit on top of it. No need to install something like wordpress for it


  • #6
    intbn
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 96 ✭✭intbn


    Thanks for the reply lads, I'll be looking into those options, I don't suppose either of you lads have an idea what this site uses?
    www.discogs.com

    if you're not familiar with it, it's the biggest music database on the internet, I read an interview about the guy who set it up in 2000 and he explained that it was a really simple idea, each CD or Vinyl release or artist, record label etc have their own entry in the database, the site is completely interconnected with links, but they are not html links, they're all numbers, here's some examples:
    http://www.discogs.com/artist/1768
    http://www.discogs.com/label/2932
    http://www.discogs.com/release/1797577

    So it seems to me like they don't have an unreal, massive array of folders containing htmls for each artist, label etc, just one database file that it's all retrieved from... am I way off here?


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  • #7
    colm_c
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,011 ✭✭✭colm_c


    That's how most database driven websites work.

    They use a url pattern which passes an ID/name into the application e.g.
    http://www.discogs.com/artist/1768

    passes 'artist' and '1768' to the web app, which then does a database lookup.

    This is fairly standard faire for any MVC framework, rails, expressJS, CodeIgnitor etc.

    If you want to create something like discogs, I'd be looking at a custom webapp based on one of the many MVC frameworks -- which framework is down to personal preference for the most part as there are loads which will give you a huge chunk out of the box.


  • #8
    Buford T Justice
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,272 ✭✭✭Buford T Justice


    As above, something like this site is a simple database driven concept with an MVC framework.

    There are buckets of them out there, laravel, codeigniter cakephp, node.js and so on, with pro's and cons for each. I use cakephp for work, and it can be quite good, although its not without its drawbacks.

    Someone with experience with a framework shouldn't take a huge amount of time to come up with something.


  • #9
    mach1982
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 760 ✭✭✭mach1982


    Ok easiest thing would be to use some type of content management system such as Joomla or wordpress. But if you like a challenge you could learn to code the site yourself check out w3schools.


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