This begins a series documenting a small application I’m building for the Siemens PLM Software Global Calendar Program. Since we didn’t have much of a budget for this project, I took it on as a leap of faith and asked for little bits of change here and there. I mean, we’ve already plopped down the cash for hosting and for Expression Engine to host the blog. Why not use EE? It’s total shoe-string development.
DISCLAIMER: I’m not a developer. And I hardly know any PHP. I have a couple books gathering dust on my desk. I will read them when I find the time in between this full-time job and grad school lectures two nights per week. So I’m faking it, and learning as I go. Deal with it.
Benefits of the project:
- We grow the Siemens PLM Software Blog member list
- Cleaner data… and ONE set of data
- Less data entry after the winners are announced (thank goodness)
- I’m learning about Expression Engine
- I’m installing EE modules like FreeForm
- Promote our users!
Want to follow along? Here’s what you will need:
- A Web host that supports PHP + mySQL. What’s this? Good question. Just look up the platform info with your hosting provider. Most decent ones support this. We use Engine Hosting
- Expression Engine (installation instructions)
- FreeForm (from SolSpace)
- A good dose of patience
Outlining the Application
Here’s how we outlined how this app should work:
- Register on the site
- Activate the registration (via e-mail) returns to the site
- Log in and upload image, caption and other info
Once we’ve received all of the entries, we will rate them, edit information as needed, and display a gallery of user-submitted images.
Step 1: The Intro Page
- Create a New Template Group in EE – Templates
- Create the landing page for your application. This is tricky. I set up two sections for the app. One if the user is logged out – telling them to register first, and then other for users who are logged in.CODE SAMPLE
{if logged_out}<a href="{path=member/register}">Register, playa</a>{/if}AND
{if logged_in}Put the upload form stuff here!{/if}
In Part 2, I will explain how to install FreeForm and get it working to accept new submissions from users.