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Admin Sites / Auto Update Sites
Written By:Brooks on September 8, 2010, 3:47 am. Views: 429 Comments: 0So you know how some sites seem to constantly have new content or new news etc.? Well, it isn't because they are constantly updating and making new HTML pages I assure you. Instead, they are using a database and a web programming language to automate this entire process. So let us consider an example of where this would be used... one of our clients Giorgios-Restaurant (Link To Giorgio's) is an Italian Restaurant in Wilmington, North Carolina. They wanted a way to have their specials display on their home page so that their customers could easily see what specials would be available on a particular day. We said...ABSOLUTELY, no problem!
We started this project by finding out exactly the format/appearance that they wanted for their specials. Upon doing so, we began developing the database structure to support the system. I suppose we will spare all the technical details, but basically a database is where we hold all types of information and we are able to retrieve that information from the database by telling it what we are looking for. For example, we could say in layman's terms..."give us the specials for January 1, 2009" it will return that information to us and we format it how we like using a development/programming language like ColdFusion or PHP. So now that we've explained somewhat how it works, now let's show you what it looks like.
Here is the Giorgios home page WITHOUT the specials being dynamically brought in from the database...
So, first ofcourse since we don't want just anyone to be able to login to their website we use some programming and security to have them login with their username and password. If those credentials are valid, then they will be allowed access... (See below)
After logging in, they are presented with what we call the "Dashboard" page where they can choose what option to take and either to update the specials or coupons...
So from here, lets say they choose specials...then they type in whatever they like here...
and as you can see on the home page whatever the user entered will be automatically updated on the home page...
Or, they could have chosen to update their coupons...
then...
(Here we genereate a code for the restaurant so that they know it is a valid printed coupon from their website), and on their coupons page now their coupon is addressed as whatever the valid user entered...
Cool huh...so imagine the possibilities... you can have updated news, specials, products.. the possibilities are truly endless. If you have any other additional questions please feel free to Contact Me or fill out a comment on this blog below. Thanks for reading!
--Brooks
