From the start....

[keepingbusy]

Hi

I have been trawling through the Tek-Tips forum looking for the right place to post this question so please accept my apology if this isn't the right place.

After much searching and googling I cannot really find the answers I'm looking for so I'm hoping someone here can help or at least point me in the right direction.

I am a Frontpage 2000 user (Good knowledge of HTML)
User of Access 2003 / Visual FoxPro 6 & 9 (Good knowledge of the latter two, enough knowledge to create a table/database in Access)
My webhosting company allows Frontpage extensions, ASP etc
I have a copy of MySQL (not yet installed)
I have many website domain names available
I do not want anyone to "Do the job for me"

1. I want to set up a website that allows visitors to search by different categories from a music catalogue database (search example

http://www.play.com)

2. When they make thier choice or choices I need a shopping cart
3. Not sure about the payment method, could be PayPal at the moment
4. I need notification of orders by email if possible but as we are walking and not running, the notification can come later
5. Is a "Are you a returning customer" method difficult to set up?

Q. Where do I look guys?
Q. Has anyone seen or read the book "PHP and MySQL For Dummies, 2nd Edition"? (

http://www.dummies.com/WileyCDA/DummiesTitle/productCd-0764555898.html)

Q. Is PHP and MySQL the way forward for this type of project?

My thanks in anticipation of any replies

Lee

 

[MagicLaptop]

The fact is that if your hosting solution does not allow PHP/MySQL, than either you look somewhere else or you go with ASP/Access instead.

For shopping cart, you could build one but you really need programming skills for this, or you could use some 3rd party carts. Usually, the provider of the payment system provides you some good shopping cart solutions and even direct payment based on particular items sold. meaning that instead of Add to cart option, you will have a "Buy this item now" button without any shopping cart.

Notification may be done by your script or by the payment service, on each sale. They usually provide this so you will probably need no other hing than to add and email address.

For returning customer, no, it is not a hard thing, you could use cookies for this, small pieces of information stored in visitor's browser. You could use this to store order required data.

Or use a login mechanism. Either way it is good.

Hope it helps you!
Good luck!




Guide on how to buy a laptop,

http://www.magiclaptop.com

 

[keepingbusy]

Hi

Thanks for the reply. In the end we took on a different hosting package (Linux) and used the OsCommerce free software thats uses php.

Lee


Windows XP
Visual FoxPro Version 6 & 9

http://www.customsoftware.co.uk