creating American Football league "module"

[webmaniacal]

Hello all, I have used php but never written php so before I started I was hoping the experts on here could give me groundzero advice.

I am preparing to TRY to create a fairly simple sports reporting module (because I can't seem to find one that is designed for American football and doesn't go into all sorts of crazy rosters and drafts, etc.) All I need the module to do is allow the visitor to select

Season (2006)
Sport (Football, Basketball, Volleyball)
League (Conference 1, Conference 2)
Team (by conference)

and be able to see

Schedule of games
or by Team Win, Loss or Tie

Statistics would be a dream addon but not necessary at this time

So my question is this -- what is the BEST source of beginner information for me to go to for this (I don't need an overview of how php works I just need to start learning how to set up the files and pages)? Also, I have a "html to php" conversion program if that is good for anything - I am sure that it is but I just created a page with several drop down boxes for team, etc. and used the php conversion and it really looks the same so I'm not sure what good that really is??? who knows....

ANY AND ALL SUGGESTIONS WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED...there are many people who are looking for this that I have seen on posts but for some reason no one seems to have it???

THANK YOU

 

[jpadie]

think about this in three stages:

stage 1: provide the user with an html page containing a form that allows them to choose how to filter the results/information they want to see. if you want to have the choices changes by virtue of what a user has selected (i.e. change conference causes a change in the teams) then the best solution is probably javascript for this bit.

stage 2: collect the information from the user form and create a database query from it. the user's choices will be in the $_POST or $_GET arrays depending on the form method you chose in stage 1.

stage 3: Query the database and move through the database resultset to create some html to show the user.

typically stage 2 and 3 are contained in the same page and often designers will also include stage 1 in the same page.

 

[webmaniacal]

i'm sorry - i posted a reply but i guess it didn't post..

thank you very much, first of all, for outlining the process. That is a HUGE help!!
would u then use a sql database? or is there a different way you would recommend?

in your expert opinion, is this a difficult task for me to try on my first php attempt? is it incredibly time consuming for someone who knows how? (and then I can guage how much time i will need to add based on my experience)

thank you very much!!!

 

[jpadie]

i would use a database that is sql compliant. mysql or sqlite would both be ok.

i think the time consuming element will be developing the search/filter strategy. for someone who understood american football (and php) i'd guess it would take 2-3 hours to put together a framework that would work but that might not be pretty.

 

[webmaniacal]

thank you that is excellent information!