I am not a web designer but I have been told that what I want to do can be done easily with a 'voting script'? I am looking to create a competition on a website that is exactly like this one:

 

Photowow.com: Weekly Photo Contest

 

The main white section is the competition I am wanting. The rest of the page is simply the main website design etc. I want to have something exactly like this. There needs to be an admin side to it, with admin receiving an email to approve uploaded images before going live. Users have to receive a confirmation email on uploading an image. Also as you can see by the example there are lots of options to view various stats etc.

 

Can this be done easily? Is there a template I can purchase to do this? I have googled 'voting script' and various related keywords for hours now and I cannot find anything the same? All I can find are these 'hotornot' type templates. This is different as it has to be a competition that restarts each month and users do not vote on user profile pics.

 

Anyone done this before? Any suggestions that would work with unitedhosting servers?

 

Thanks in advance for any help or advice...

It is a very easy task to accomplish...by someone like me

If you've got no experience, especially with PHP or MySQL then the chances are you will find it VERY difficult.

You'll either have to learn, in which case we'll all be more than happy to help, or comission the project for someone to complete for you. Judging by the work there, I'm guessing it'd set you back a several hundred atleast.

 

Ben.

hey Ben, thanks for the advice.

 

I am willing to learn but don't know how much is involved really? I have downloaded 'PHP-PictureVote-0-7', does anyone have any experience of this? It seems straight 'out the box' software kind of thing but how do I install it? I have opened the index.html page in dreamweaver and there is nothing there? Just a blank document? So do I copy all files to my server in order to have a look at it?

 

If I could just install this to give me a start I would be happy, and then I can take it from there? .

Ok so I think I may be getting somewhere but would appreciate some advice! I am not a complete newb! I have a degree in Digital Art and have worked javascript etc before. I pick things up quite quick so would appreciate any help at all...

 

So I have downloaded 'PHP Photo Voting Booth' and went through all files associated with it via dreamweaver. I came across the config file. So do I simply change the variables in config.inc.php3, create the database and tables needed and then copy all files to my server?

 

There is an 'index.html' file in the folder, so once I have completed steps above should this 'index' file contain the voting booth page?

 

Any help greatly appreciated!

I downloaded the software to take a look at it for you. It doesn't seem very well constructed but I guess that it does what you want it for.

 

Before running the script, you will have to run an "SQL Command" on your MySQL database. You can use phpMyAdmin or something similar to do this. I'm not sure how familiar you are with databases but you will have to click the tab marked "SQL" and paste the contents of database-structure.mysql.php3 into it. This will create the relevant tables and structures required by the software.

 

You will then need to go through config.inc.php3 changing the values that you need changing for example the "poll_title" variable, your database access information and your host. Then upload all the files to your server and it should run. I'm not sure how it works from there though as I didn't develop it. I'll leave it up to you to work out

 

Regards,

Dan

 

P.S. Ben is right. If you haven't any experience with PHP and MySQL, the chances are that you're going to find it pretty difficult to get running the way you want it to. But as he says, we're all here to help

hey dangreave92, thanks for the advice, it seems simple enough. I do have experience of phpmyadmin and mysql etc, it's just writing php code that I have no idea with! I have managed to get this far:

 

I created my sql database (photo_vote), clicked on the 'sql' tab, pasted contents of 'database-structure.mysql.php3' and hit 'go'. Am I doing it right so far?

 

I then get a return of 'Your SQL query has been executed successfully'. But the database (Photo_Vote) still has (0) next to it and no tables?

Try removing the "<?php" and "?>" tags when you paste in the SQL. I'm not sure why the developer included those in an SQL file as they are intended for php files.

If Dan's advice doesn't work, try running this code:

 

CREATE TABLE Options_Table (
  Record_ID int(6) NOT NULL auto_increment,
  Poll_ID int(6) NOT NULL,
  Option_Name varchar(254) NOT NULL,
  Option_Description varchar(254) NOT NULL,
  Option_Photo_ID int(6) NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (Record_ID)
);


CREATE TABLE Photo_Table (
  Record_ID int(6) NOT NULL auto_increment,
  Photo_Small_BLOB longblob NOT NULL,
  Photo_Description varchar(50) NOT NULL,
  Photo_Small_File_Name varchar(50) NOT NULL,
  Photo_Small_File_Size varchar(50) NOT NULL,
  Photo_Small_File_Type varchar(50) NOT NULL,
  Photo_Large_BLOB longblob NOT NULL,
  Photo_Large_File_Name varchar(50) NOT NULL,
  Photo_Large_File_Size varchar(50) NOT NULL,
  Photo_Large_File_Type varchar(50) NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (Record_ID)
);


CREATE TABLE Poll_Table (
  Record_ID int(6) NOT NULL auto_increment,
  Poll_Name varchar(254) NOT NULL,
  Poll_Description varchar(254) NOT NULL,
  Poll_Start_Time int(11) NOT NULL,
  Poll_Stop_Time int(11) NOT NULL,
  Poll_LastVote_Time int(11) NOT NULL,
  Poll_RedirectPage varchar(254) NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (Record_ID)
);


CREATE TABLE Vote_Table (
  Record_ID int(6) NOT NULL auto_increment,
  Poll_ID int(6) NOT NULL,
  Option_ID int(6) NOT NULL,
  Email_Address varchar(254) NOT NULL,
  Vote_Confirmation int(5) NOT NULL,
  Vote_Confirmed char(1) NOT NULL,
  Vote_Time int(11) NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (Record_ID)
);

 

I just stripped out all the comments because the script has them with #'s, whereas PhpMyAdmin uses -'s

Thanks dangreaves92 and MrBrightside, I have now got my database and tables created successfully.

 

Now I am trying to figure out how to actually see the script in action? I presumed if I navigate through the url to the location of the 'index.html' file then I would see the 'photo voting' application? i.e. mywebsite/containingfolder/index.html

 

But I presumed wrong! I simply get a blank page? So am I doing this wrong or does this mean that my settings within the config file must be wrong?