Hi all, I'm very new to website design and am in the process of creating one using the web host JustHost and therefore Cpanel.

 

I want to allow people to enter certain criteria (these may include their post code, eating required or not, nearby rivers, etc) and have the customised results appear. However, it will all be much more specific than this, but this will be the general idea.

 

I am wondering where to start with this, would this be a custom-made database of some kind, where I would enter the data beforehand?

 

 

Any guidance would be appreciated.

Thanks

My first choice for you would be to look into PHP and MySql. But this will not allow you to make what you want over night. You need to read and learn, read and learn, but once grasped very useful thing to know if your wanting to continue to create dynamic websites.

I have to echo the above. If you want to create these kinds of websites you either have a long road ahead of you learning to program in PHP and MySQL, or you will need to outsource the work to a developer.

OK thanks for the advice. However, I was told that this may be done (relatively) easily without of the need for much experience. Maybe, if I clarify it might help, then again, it might not

 

The site will provide information about a small part of Scotland, a kind of tourist guide if you like. I would like to provide visitors to the site the ability to search for things such as; rivers, fishing spots, the radius of attractions from a given postcode, price range, reviewer rating, etc.

 

I'm guessing this can possibly be done by selecting the options from a drop-down menu, or checking boxes, possibly?

 

I don't have any real idea how to go about implementing this right now, but I have seen it used on some sites that I now cant recall.

 

Does this change matters at all?

Thanks for the information, but searching rthe content on the site isnt what I'm after.

 

I want to be able to create/build the databases on the site in the form of drop-down menus.

The functionality of what you're after goes alot further than what it first seems. Things like dropdown menus and checkboxes are the tip of the iceberg and are the really simply part that the user can actually see.

 

As soon as a user clicks "submit" a whole load of stuff happens in the background. Data needs to be checked for validity, then checked for malicious input, then trimmed down, then that needs to be fed into a database query which then has to return the results, only for another script to format it and display it all on the webpage. And that's just a simple search, things such as a postcode search require double that.

 

If you are willing to go it alone and are interested in learning how to program, I would reccomend you start at W3 Schools. If not, I'm afraid it could mean hiring a web developer for the project.

 

Regards,

Dan