HTML or Hypertext Markup Language, is the predominant language in which most Internet web pages are based.  HTML accomplishes a number of tasks via a web page, including describing the structure of text based information to be displayed within the page (font sizes, text colors and formats, etc.), providing a means for the user to interact with the site via web forms, and embedding images and other types media for display to the user.

When an HTML page is provided to a user’s web browser over the Internet, the web browser will “translate” the HTML code into the format that will be displayed to the user.
HTML is written in the form of labels (known as tags).  Each tag includes an “open” tag and a “close” tag, and the text that is contained within the opening and closing tags.  For example, text can be made bold by using the <b> and </b> tag pair, so that the following HTML code will display the bold text word “Hello” in the user’s web browser.
<b>
Hello
</b>
HTML pages can also incorporate or embed the code for one or more “scripting languages”, including JavaScript, PHP, CGI, and ASP.Net.

What Can HTML Do for Me?

HTML provides the basic structure for your website, so it’s the foundation for your business getting its message to customers and potential customers.  When you understand the basic principles of HTML, you can begin to format your web pages to have a more unique and in- house appearance.  Brand recognition is important in business, and a little HTML coding can change a template style web page into something that is unique and recognizable.  In addition to displaying advertising copy, pictures, brochures and the like, you can also:

· Provide users with a feedback form to submit basic information to you through the website.
· Generate an email
· Offer a Guestbook

How Do I Learn HTML?

As you might suspect, there is a seemingly endless supply of web-based tutorials and instructional materials for learning about HTML.  There are a number of Internet-based tutorials to get you started, and to instruct you on any particular detail or HTML feature that you’re interested in.

Another way to “learn” HTML is simply to create you website using a web-authoring program, and examine the HTML code behind it.  We’ll talk about a few of the leading web-authoring programs later in this article.

Do I Need To Learn It?

Strictly speaking, you don’t need to become an HTML expert to build and administer your businesses website.  Many of the most popular tools for website construction include powerful capabilities (including many that most websites may never utilize).  As an added benefit, some of these programs are available at no cost.

Since the HTML that serves as the backbone of a website is basically just text, any text editor (including Microsoft’s Notepad) can be used to create a website.  Even though writing HTML code directly in a text editor can eventually help you to better understand what’s going on “under the hood”, spending the time necessary to become a hardcore HTML coder might simply not be an option.

In contrast, there are also popular programs that make it much easier to create your website layout and design through graphical user interface.  These programs do the heavy lifting, and will automatically assemble the HTML code based on the design you make.

Dreamweaver

Adobe’s Dreamweaver is one of the leading commercial web design software packages available today.  Dreamweaver has a reputation within in the web design community as being very rich in features, and one that generates very “clean” or more standards-compliant code.  (This means that, in theory, the Dreamweaver code should run more predictably on a broader range of web browsers.)  Dreamweaver also has strong support for CSS, JavaScript, XML, and a variety of other functionalities that are commonly used on “higher end” websites.  In addition, Dreamweaver has tight integration with Adobe’s other design programs, including Photoshop and Flash.  This can be a time-saver if you are using (or decide to use) those other programs.

On the other hand, Dreamweaver is expensive, compared to other commercial options.  In addition, many feel that because there are so many features and functions available in the program, it can be intimidating for new users and designers.

Expression Web

Microsoft’s Expression Web (the successor to the venerable FrontPage software) is Microsoft’s web authoring tool and is considered to be one of the leading web design tool available today.

Expression Web has many (if not most) of the same tools as are available in Dreamweaver, and boasts strong integration with Microsoft’s other design and infrastructure products, such as Visual Studio, SharePoint, and the Office suite of products.  In addition, Expression Web’s menu structures and look-and-feel will be familiar to users of other Microsoft Office products, which can make it easier for those already accustomed to Microsoft products.

Note, however, that the source code that Expression Web generates is sometimes not as clean as that created by Dreamweaver (or coded directly into HTML using a simple text editor), so this may result in some problems (or at least some additional time required) if you decide to use Dreamweaver to modify a page that was created in Expression Web.  In addition, some page elements (such as tables) can require additional work if created in one program and then edited in another.

Nvu

For those who want to create relatively simple websites, without some of the fancy features that are available with Dreamweaver and Expression Web might wish to consider the open source product Nvu.  Nvu has a graphical user interface like Dreamweaver and Expression Web, and is very efficient at making much HTML coding easier and quicker.  As an open source product, Nvu is free of charge, and relatively well supported by its user community.

Web-Based Programs and Templates

Finally, be aware that there are a number of web-based authoring programs (such as Homestead) and template services available.  These options often require very little effort in terms of design and coding, and are generally available at very reasonable prices.  Keep in mind, however, that because most templates are or have been available to other users, you might wind up with a design that is not unique, or doesn’t provide your website with a sufficiently distinct identity.

How to Move Forward

At the end of the day, any web authoring tool is likely to have both have pluses and minuses.  Before committing to license any particular package, take a little time to try any available online or downloadable trial versions of the package.  The key to deciding is to identify your current and future needs, and balance this against your budget for the project.  While choosing a particular tool won’t forever tie you to using that same tool in the future, making a thoughtful decision at the outset can help you to avoid spending time making corrections and adjustments down the road.

Nowadays, HTML Help CHM is the standard help format used in most modern Windows applications. An HTML Help system is completely stand-alone and can be distributed as a single file (for example, “My_Help_File.CHM”). Thus, a CHM file is practically a kind of the portable formats for technical documentation, which can be opened on all Windows PCs since Windows 98. Thus, any Windows user will be able to open such a file under Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP, and the latest Vista operating system as well.

An HTML Help CHM file includes all the features to provide the end-user with easily navigated tutorial. Everybody of us is probably familiar with the HTML Help viewer, which has the Table of Contents, alphabetical Index, and the Search feature, located on the navigation pane to the left side from the help topic text.

How do I create CHM HTML Help Files?

In fact, there are various tools in the marketplace from primitive applications to complex and expensive systems for writing technical documentation that support HTML Help as an output format. However, the common problem of that software is their non-intuitive and sluggish interface, complexity, and high price of about $999 per license or even more! Moreover, you will have to spend a lot of time on learning the tool before can create even a simple CHM file for your software product. Now you may be asking if there is another solution to make the process of creating CHM help an easier way. Fortunately, the answer is “yes”.

HelpSmith has an alternative vision of creating CHM Help. If you download and try HelpSmith available on the vendor’s web site, you will be surprised by its straightforward and easy-to-use user interface. There’s actually NO learning curve like in many other help authoring products making you spend hours to figure out how to add new help topic. Once you have installed HelpSmith on your computer, you can type “Hello, World”, click a button and here is it – your first help file in the HTML Help format. Then you can easily add new help topics, create hyperlinks, help windows, insert graphical files and everything the HTML Help system allows you to do; the process of working is actually as simple as working with Microsoft Office applications.

Creating CHM Files with HelpSmith

HelpSmith allows you to easily create CHM HTML Help files. Based upon the WYSIWYG (“What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get”) principle, HelpSmith provides you with a powerful text editor making the biggest part of working on a help system – writing and editing help topics – a pleasure to do. Use graphical images, insert full-featured tables, create hyperlinks, finally, and check spelling as you type just like in Microsoft Word. Also, you will be able to create the Table of Contents and the keyword Index for your CHM help system just in several minutes. Among other important HelpSmith features are the abilities to create Web Help and printed documentation from the same source help project.

Microsoft HHC.EXE compiler

CHM is not an open file format. So how do third party products allow you to create it? Like other help authoring tools, HelpSmith uses the HHC.EXE help compiler to create CHM Files from the source project. The HHC.EXE HTML Help compiler is freely available with the Microsoft HTML Help Workshop package which can be downloaded from the product’s home page. Once HTML Help Workshop is installed, you should follow these simple steps to link HHC.EXE with HelpSmith:

Choose “Options\Tools” from the menu.
Select “General\Compilers” on the left sidebar.
Specify the full path to the “HHC.EXE” file on your computer (for example, “c:\Program Files\HTML Help Workshop\HHC.exe”).
Click the OK button to save the changed parameters.

The compiler is installed, the process of working with HHC.EXE is completely transparent to you, making it a breeze to create CHM HTML Help documentation.

jQuery is a new type of fast and concise JavaScript library which emphasises the interaction between JavaScripts and HTML, whereas Flash is a multimedia platform which can control vector and raster graphics and even support bidirectional streaming of audio and video. The usability of these two applications helped to create popular animation and interactivity to a plain and simple webpage, that was not possible before. There are various other interesting things that one can do with these two applications, which is slowly taking over the world.

Since its introduction in the year 1996, Adobe Flash became quite a popular method of adding animation and different types of interactivity to the web pages. With the help of its scripting language called the ActionScript, Flash took animation to a different level altogether. Then in the year 2006, jQuery came into being and became the most popular JavaScript to be used by the web developers. Designed to make navigation round a document easier and faster, jQuery allows the user to very efficiently find and manipulate HTML elements with minimum lines of codes. Even though it isn’t known to be the best solution for 3-D and vector based graphics, the versatility of jQuery is truly quite astounding making it a much better alternative to Flash.

In case of Flash, some of the plus points include its extensive features, 3D capabilities, unfailing appearance in supported browsers, built-in User Interface and other features, supporting vector artworks, lots of font options and off course many free and commercial tools are also available here. Whereas in jQuery, the file size is relatively much smaller, there are numerous free professional quality programs that one can use, one can add various types of interactivity to the webpage elements and its tags and its compatibility is much higher compared with that of Flash, which includes iPhone, cell phones, PS3 and PSP.

It is thus very important to know when to use either of these two applications versus each other. While creating a Slide Show, Form Validation, Drop-down Menus, Tabbed Panels, Pop-ups & Tool-tips, and Expandable & Collapsible Elements it is ideal to use jQuery. Again when working with Video or Audio Player, complex Animations, 3Ds and other forms of complex Multimedia, using Adobe Flash is the best. With more and more different types of plug-ins becoming available, its best to know up front what you are trying to achieve and then evaluating both the technologies before using one.

With the internet on the roll, developers are coming out with new and new technologies everyday which provides more and more different alternatives and options for the users to get acquainted with and use them to its maximum capabilities.

Let’s understand CSS in the right perspective.

Style sheets in retrospect

Style sheets have been around in one form or another since the beginnings of HTML in the early 1990s.

As the HTML language grew, however, it came to encompass a wider variety of stylistic capabilities to meet the demands of web developers . With such capabilities, style sheets became less important, and an external language for the purposes of defining style attributes was not widely accepted until the development of CSS.

Teething problems with implementation of CSS

Many implementations of CSS are fraught with inconsistencies, bugs and other Authors have commonly had to use hacks and workarounds in order to obtain consistent results across web browsers and platforms.

One of the most well-known CSS bugs is the Internet Explorer box model bug; box widths are interpreted incorrectly in several versions of the browser, resulting in blocks which appear as expected in most browsers, but are too narrow when viewed in Internet Explorer. The bug can be avoided, but not without some cost in terms of functionality.

This is just one of hundreds of CSS bugs that have been documented in various versions of Internet Explorer,Netscape Mozilla , and Opera, many of which reduce the legibility of documents. The proliferation of such bugs in CSS implementations has made it difficult for designers to achieve a consistent appearance across platforms.

Currently there is strong competition between Mozilla’s Gecko layout engine, Opera’s Presto layout engine, and the KHTML engine used in both Apple’s Safari and the Linux Konqueror browsers – each of them is leading in different aspects of CSS. Internet Explorer remains the worst at rendering CSS by standards set down by World Wide Web Consortium as of 2005.

Some breakthroughs …

These problems have preisely led the W3C to revise the CSS2 standard into CSS2.1, which may be regarded as something of a working snapshot of current CSS support. CSS2 properties which no browser had successfully implemented were dropped, and in a few cases, defined behaviours were changed to bring the standard into line with the predominant existing implementations..

What makes style sheets significant enough?

Style sheet represents an enormous step forward for the Web. With the separation of content and presentation between HTML and style sheets, the Web no longer needs to drift away from the strong ideal of platform independence that provided the medium with its initial push of popularity. Authors can finally influence the presentation of documents without leaving pages unreadable to users

A style sheet is made up of style rules that tell a browser how to present a document. There are various ways of linking these style rules to your HTML documents, but the simplest method for starting out is to use HTML’s STYLE element. This element is placed in the document HEAD, and it contains the style rules for the page.

Functionality and Usage of CSS

CSS is well-designed to allow the separation of presentation and structure. Prior to CSS, nearly all of the presentational attributes of an HTML document were contained within the HTML code; all font colors, background styles, element alignments, borders and sizes had to be explicitly described, often repeatedly, in the midst of the HTML code.

CSS allows authors to move much of that information to a stylesheet, resulting in considerably simpler HTML code. The HTML documents become much smaller and web browsers will usually cache sites’ CSS stylesheets. This leads to a reduction in network traffic and noticeably quicker page downloads.

For example, the HTML element h2 specifies that the text contained within it is a level two heading. It has a lower level of importance than h1 headings, but a higher level of importance than h3 headings. This aspect of the h2 element is structural .

Customarily, headings are rendered in decreasing order of size, with h1 as the largest, because larger headings are usually interpreted to have greater importance than smaller ones. Headings are also typically rendered in a bold font in order to give them additional emphasis. The h2 element may be rendered in bold face, and in a font larger than h3 but smaller than h1 . This aspect of the h2 element is presentational .

Prior to CSS, document authors who wanted to assign a specific color, font, size, or other characteristic to all h2 headings had to use the HTML font element for each occurrence of that heading type.

Moreover, CSS can be used with XML, to allow such structured documents to be rendered with full stylistic control over layout, typography, color, and so forth in any suitable user agent or web browser.

CSS has its share of inconsistencies as well

CSS may at times be misused, particularly by the author of web documents. Some developers who are accustomed to designing documents strictly in HTML may overlook or ignore the enabling features of CSS. For instance, a document author who is comfortable with HTML markup that mixes presentation with structure may opt to use strictly embedded CSS styles in all documents. While this may be an improvement over using deprecated HTML presentational markup, it suffers from some of the same problems that mixed-markup HTML does; specifically, it entails a similar amount of document maintenance.

Discrepancies compared: CSS vs programming languages

CSS also shares some pitfalls common with programming languages. In particular, the problem of choosing appropriate names for CSS classes and identifiers may afflict CSS authors. In the attempt to choose descriptive names for CSS classes, authors might associate the class name with desired presentational attributes; for example, a CSS class to be applied to emphasized text might be named “bigred,” implying that it is rendered in a large red font.

While such a choice of naming may be intuitive to the document author, it can cause problems if the author later decides that the emphasized text should instead be green; the author is left with a CSS class called “bigred” that describes something that is green. In this instance, a more appropriate class name might have been “emphasized,” to better describe the purpose or intent of the class, rather than the appearance of elements of that class.

In a programming language, such a misuse might be analogous to using a variable name “five” for a variable which contains the value 5; however, if the value of the variable changes to 7, the name is no longer appropriate.

CSS in a nutshell

CSS is used by both the authors and readers of web pages to define colors, fonts, layout, and other aspects of document presentation. It is designed primarily to enable the separation of document structure (written in HTML or a similar markup language) from document presentation (written in CSS).

This separation provides a number of benefits, including improved content accessibility, greater flexibility and control in the specification of presentational characteristics, and reduced complexity of the structural content. CSS is also capable of controlling the document’s style separately in alternative rendering methods, such as on-screen in print, by voice (when read out by a speech-based browser or screen reader) and on braille based, tactile devices.

CSS allows complete and total control over the style of a hypertext document. The only way this can be illustrated in a way that gets people excited is by demonstrating what it can truly be, once the reins are placed in the hands of those able to create beauty from structure.

The idea of a PSD-to-HTML service is quite simple. Using Adobe Photoshop or other software packages, graphic and web designers create digital images — files with *.PSD, etc extensions. To convert them into a webpage template or blog theme, you need to develop HTML code. PSD-to-HTML companies are those who provide such a transformation.

The emergence of PSD-to-HTML services is not just chance.

A while ago we all celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Web. Media actively discussed achievements and outlook of the Internet. The appearance of design-to-HTML coding as a separate service also illustrates that the Web is becoming more mature. Really, specialization of labor and tendency to standards compliance are features of established industries only.

The own niche in the web development process

Each of the web development jobs — design, HTML/CSS coding, and programming in PHP, Java, etc. — plays its own important role and requires its own specific skills and aptitude.

I like the analogy with music creation: composers (in case of Web — designers) express their ideas in images. Then the music (websites) is written down by means of musical notation (HTML and CSS), arranged for different types of orchestras (browsers), and complied with recommendations of musicians’ associations (WWW Consortium) and music critics (search engines). Of course, quality instruments, sound equipment, and stage effects are a must (databases, chats, widgets, etc).

If each job is done properly, the website may get “Grammy”, i.e. a lot of traffic and place #1 in SERPs (search engine results pages).

Web standards, compatibility, and accessibility

PSD-to-HTML providers’ advertisements often say that a resulting HTML/XHTML/CSS markup will be “cross-browser compatible, W3C valid, SEO semantic, and hand-coded.” Why is it emphasized?

1. Cross-browser compatibility
Users are free in their choice which of the PC or mobile devices, operating systems or browsers to utilize. Browser producers are also free in which way to treat a webpage. To ensure correct website appearance in different environments and make it accessible to wider audience, browser-specific code is added to a website HTML/CSS markup.

2. W3C compliance
W3C is World Wide Web Consortium which develops and approves the main Web guidelines, specifications, and tools, including HTML and CSS. When a site meets W3C standards, it is like a Web Quality Certificate. As a first step in evaluating website validity, you can use W3C sites validator.w3.org and jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/.

3. Semantic coding
HTML and CSS allow getting the same webpage appearance in different ways. Semantic coding implies that you mark up your website taking into account content meaning and HTML tag semantics: e.g., main headlines — with the help of h1 tag (“heading1″) and so forth. Typically a semantic-coded site is more search engine friendly; search engines “understand” it better and rank it higher.

The role of semantic coding has been increasingly growing. Experts state that the coming Web will be completely semantic and provide more correct retrieving and processing data both by computers and human beings.

4. Hand- or automatically coded markup?
In many cases handcrafted HTML/CSS markups are better than those produced by specialized software. One of the reasons is a lot of semantic niceties which are difficult to code automatically. It is like software packages for design or programming — they help very much and quicken the process essentially but they don’t substitute designers or programmers completely.

What is the difference between PSD-to-HTML and PSD-to-XHTML services?

XHTML (eXtensible HTML) is the successor and modern extension of HTML and is recommended by W3C as a main markup language for today’s Web. XHTML/CSS makes a webpage markup more compact and flexible, table-less, and with clear content and design separation.

But there is a sound marketing/SEO aspect too: “PSD to HTML” and “PSD to XHTML” are often used as synonyms in providers’ marketing materials. Here are some other key-phrases typical for PSD-to-HTML service advertisements: “Design to XHTML/CSS”, “HTML coding service”, “PSD to markup”, just to name a few. In fact, PSD-to-HTML companies usually offer a wide range of services, including conversion of designs (*.psd, *.ai, *.png) into XHTML/CSS/AJAX markups, blog themes, templates for shopping carts or content management systems (CMS).

The competition forces PSD-to-HTML providers to develop XHTML/CSS code in line with the latest Web trends. PSD-to-HTML services help to make web development faster and easier, allowing designers and back-end programmers to concentrate on their specific tasks. Who benefit from that? I think all the Web community.

CSS or Cascading Style Sheets is a great tool to add a unique look to your web pages.  CSS enhances fonts, colors, and even the spacing of your web pages.  It is a useful tool to let you separate your HTML content from your style. For example, you can use your HTML file to create and organize the content, but all of the visual presentation including the background, fonts, colors, link effects, text formatting, and spacing are created with a CSS file.

Benefits of CSS

As discussed, CSS makes it easy for you to separate the style and layout of your HTML files from their informational content.  This means you can determine the look of your site in one file, and change the whole site by modifying that single file. It also means you can make your HTML changes by accessing one file.

This structure provided by CSS also means that you can work with your web pages so that they look good on any browser.  For example, a page on Mozilla can look very different than a page seen on internet explorer.  CSS eliminates that difference.

CSS gives you more control over how your pages look because it is a more detailed mechanism than HTML.  HTML wasn’t designed for style, it was designed for document structure.  CSS was designed for style.  This means it is easier for you as a business owner seeking brand development and recognition to define your “look” and give it a unique and consistent feel.

Users say that CSS also prints better than HTML documents.  Important if visitors are accessing your content, which they hopefully are, printing it, and taking it with them or better yet – sharing it with their friends and associates.  Additionally, the pages allow visitors to print the entire page as opposed to the partial pages that HTML often prints.

CSS decreases your page size significantly, making it easier for your visitors to load your site and all relevant graphics and copy.  It also means that your web pages can be seen quickly and clearly with handheld browsers.  This is huge because many people are now surfing the internet on their cell phones, smart phones, and PDAs.  If your site doesn’t load quickly, chances are people are going to leave.  If your site is quickly and clearly accessible – you may have a new customer!  Additionally, it will take up less space on your server if you’re running close to your limit – and save you less money if you’re being charge by bandwidth.  This is because CSS requires less code.

CSS enables you to position the code for your content at the top making your page search engine friendly. Properly marked up, HTML pages can easily found and properly categorized by search engines.

It is also fairly easy for anyone to learn because CSS already uses well-known coding elements and principals.

The benefits of CSS include making your web site:
• Faster to create
• Easier to maintain or change
• More adaptable to fit new and emerging technologies
• Compact
• Neater and cleaner in the HTML code

How do I use CSS ?

Cascading Style Sheets can be used in two ways – internally or externally. When used internally the CSS code is placed within the ‘head’ tags of each HTML file. The HTML code basically looks just like this:
<head>
<title></title>
<style type=”text/css”>
Place your CSS CONTENT HERE
</style>
</head>
<body>

Externally, your CSS code that would be placed in the HTML file is now placed in a separate file and linked to the location. The file type for the CSS code can be created with any text or HTML editor such as Notepad. Once created there are two ways you can link to your CSS file:

1. In the head section of every (X)HTML file, appearing as:

<head>
<title></title>
<link rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css”rel=”nofollow” onclick=”javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview(‘/outgoing/article_exit_link’);” href=”style.css” mce_rel=”nofollow” onclick=”javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview(‘/outgoing/article_exit_link’);” href=”style.css” />
</head>
<body>
2. Using the @import method, appearing as:

<head>
<title></title>
<style type=”text/css”> @import url(Path to stylesheet.css) </style>
</head>
<body>

So what method do you choose?  That depends on what you need.  For example, internal is used when a designer needs to style only one page, or different pages with different styles.  Web page designers tend to prefer an external cascading style sheet. This is because, as noted earlier in the benefits list, you will only need to edit one CSS file to change the entire website. Webmasters also find external is better because they are easier to maintain, they’re more compact, and generally the appearance is easier to control and stylize.

Potential Concerns

Not all browsers can read CSS.  This is a real concern; however, the percentage has decreased to the point where less than 1% of browsers are affected.  What sites are affected?  Older browser versions, created before CSS was standard, including Netscape 4.0.  Because the vast majority of browsers are significantly newer than this, and because the World Wide Web Consortium has recommended the use of CSS, making it a widely acceptable and recognizable mechanism around the world, all concerns about using CSS are negligible.

Bottom Line

CSS is a tool that will make your web pages easier to organize and maintain, your website easier to change, your brand potentially stronger, your website more compact and easier to load, your search engine optimization will improve, oh and your pages will just look better.  There really isn’t a reason to not experiment with CSS and integrate it into your web site.  Once you begin using and designing with  CSS, you’ll likely find building sites is more fun, faster, and they look amazing.

Unlike language as we humans think of it, PHP tutorial scripts are not meant to be heard or listened too or even spoken. PHP tutorial scripts are learnt by people in order to be written and then ‘read’ and operated by computers alone.

PHP tutorial scripts are strings of symbols that operate only as pixels on screen and as digital data on your computers hard disk and on the servers of your Internet service provider. So have you ever wondered what happens to all those web pages, words and images when you move away from the website?

I always imagine them to be like the hologram of Princess Leia in the Star Wars movie. When you open up a website the PHP script leaps to life in front of your eyes and just as quickly reverts to PHP encoded script when you maneuver away from any particular site. So if nobody is visiting your website at any given time does it exist at all? Rather it only exists as a PHP tutorial script. That is to say PHP tutorial scripts only exist in a symbolic world until activated and then they only exist in a different symbolic world as long as you are looking at them. “Help me Obi Wan, you’re my only hope!”

Now you can go to PHP tutorial script websites and learn to write the language of PHP scripts that will then generate websites of infinite variety and designed to your PHP scripting. (Really it isn’t as difficult as becoming a Jedi knight). So hence the question that we began with, (boy aren’t you glad you started this?) which came first the PHP tutorial script or the website?

Am I just contemplating my navel or does all this PHP tutorial script talk have anything to do with real life. Well quite a lot actually. “Search your feelings Luke. You know it’s true”? You can turn a PHP tutorial script into cash and earn a very good living as a PHP programmer.

The online job site oDesk is finding that number of projects for PHP programmers is growing faster than any other freelance sector and the wages paid for these projects are rising faster too. ODesk also report that “overall, PHP demand was twice that of any other programming language. Open source technology, led by PHP and MySQL, is by far the skill set in highest demand today.”

PHP tutorial scripts are better than any other coding platform because it is free. Very flexible and offers a huge support network of other PHP scripters. There is an extensive library of PHP tutorial scripts that can be tailored, are transferable and match to fit almost any web application.

Well, PHP is a server-side programming language : server-side? means that the code is interpreted at level of the PHP engine installed on the web server. PHP is open-source (free at no cost). Beeing free of charge makes it very popular and I would say easy to use.

Where can be used php? Everywhere on the web, and I think desktop application can be coded too with the GTK feature but I dont know much about it so I will stop here talking about this. On the other side, for the web application development, you can build dynamic websites, database driven websites (for example MySQL, PostreSQL, etc.), diverse web forms like a contact form which will insert the infos into database system or send details entered in the form to a specified email address, etc.

How do you start the ball rolling? Well, please start reading introductory tutorials on php official website, then get a project in mind and try finding requirements needed for this project. This is the best way to learn : by practicing, not just reading tons of borring tutorials.

Once you got a project in mind, you will definitely need a php engine to be able to execute the code. How do you make this? Simply install a webserver like apache, add php server to this and mysql database engine. You’ll find a lot of documentation to help you doing this or there are a lot of ready made packs wich includes, php, apache, phpmyadmin, mysql, etc for example easyphp web server or xampp. They’re free and easy to install.

The second thing is to register at specific forums, where you can get support and help from the php gurus, because you really need fast help when errors will occure, and by the way, trust me you’ll encounter a lot of “strange” errors at the begining, which later will become just a routine.

And lastly, do not forget to get a nice code editor with code colloring, code auto-completion feature is very important too which will make developing faster. My tip here is to use Zend IDE (the php company) which is the best and includes mentioned features. Also, Adobe Dreamweaver is not bad, you can use that too which is nice for html/css client side scripting. I assumed that you already know html at least, it is very recommended to know it to make things clear in programming.

And, for the begining this should be enough for a novice to begin to learn php programming language at the basic level. Later, with the time and projects which are mandatory for progress, you’ll get experience and will advance maybe to OOP (object oriented programming) which is another thing important.
Good luck in learning!

Overview

In this tutorial we’ll be creating a very simple blog system. We won’t be using OOP yet in this tutorial. For creating a Blog using OOP in PHP, another more advanced tutorial will be written and posted as well. The same goes for creating a more advance CMS. However in this tutorial will just be creating a simple Blog system with php functions. Functions will be created for:

• Connecting to Host & DB
• Adding posts
• Deleting posts
• Adding replies
• Deleting replies
• Creating categories
• Retrieving & Displaying Posts
• Add user
• Edit user profile
• Display user profile
• Search

Also a simple 2 rows div layout will be created with a side-menu and main content div.

Database

Let’s start with creating the database for our simple blog. We’ll call it ‘simple_blog’. However you can call it anything you like as long as you set it correctly in the script later on. Now let’s create the tables inside this database.

Table: posts

The fields that need to be created:

[TABLE=6]

SQL:

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `posts` (
  `id` int(250) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `title` varchar(50) NOT NULL,
  `author` int(250) NOT NULL,
  `message` longtext NOT NULL,
  `timestamp` int(250) NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 AUTO_INCREMENT=1 ;

Table: replies

[TABLE=9]

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `replies` (
  `id` int(250) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `postid` int(250) NOT NULL,
  `author` int(250) NOT NULL,
  `message` mediumtext NOT NULL,
  `timestamp` int(250) NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 AUTO_INCREMENT=1 ;

Table: categories

[TABLE=10]

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `categories` (
  `id` int(250) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `name` varchar(50) NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 AUTO_INCREMENT=1 ;

Table: members

[TABLE=11]

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `members` (
  `id` int(250) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `username` varchar(50) NOT NULL,
  `password` varchar(50) NOT NULL,
  `email` varchar(250) NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 AUTO_INCREMENT=1 ;

Files

Now we’ve created our database, so let’s start with an overview of the files we’ll be creating now.

• functions.php
• config.php
• profile.php
• index.php
• post.php
• includes/header.php
• includes/footer.php
• includes/sidebar.php
• admin/index.php
• admin/functions.php

Let’s start with creating our function to connect  to the database we just made.

File: functions.php

<?php

function connect($connection) {

  $host = $connection[‘host’];
  $user = $connection[‘user’];
  $pass = $connection[‘pass’];
  $db    = $connection[‘db’];
  $conn =  mysql_connect($host, $user, $pass);

  If(!$conn)
    die(“Couldn’t connect to host.”);

  $db = mysql_select_db($db);

  If(!$db)
     die(“Couldn’t connect to database.”);

}

?>

Allright so first you see we set an argrument variable ‘$connection’ for the function. This variable should be given when calling the function and should contain all host & database info required to connect to the host & database. As you can see inside the function it seperates the sub-variables of the $connection variable into 4 new variables. These are for the host, user, password and database (db). As these are the data required to connect to the host & database and should be set in an array $connection and given to this function with sub-variable ‘host’, ‘user’, ‘pass’ and ‘db’.

We’ll be offering the $connection variable to the function as an array. It will use the sub-variable named ‘host’,  ‘user’, ‘pass’ and ‘db’ to try to establish a connection to the host and database. So these we’ll need to set in our config.php file. We’ll shorten the name of the variable $connection to $conn. As the name of it doesn’t really matter as long as we give it to the function ‘connect’ when calling it.

File: config.php

<?php

####CONNECTION CONFIGURATION###
$conn[‘host’] = “localhost”;        // database host (name/IP)
$conn[‘user’] = “root”;                // database host username
$conn[‘pass’] = “password”;      // database host password
$conn[‘db’]    = “simple_blog”; //database name

?>

With this info our function ‘connect’ should be able to establish a connection to the host & database.

We set each sub-variable for the $conn array. So we’ve got one variable ( array ) that contains all sub-variables, all info required for establishing a connection to the database. Which our function connect will accomplish.

Let’s include these files to the index file already.

File: index.php

<?php

include(“functions.php”);

include(“config.php”);

?>

We can already use our function to connect to the host & database:

File: index.php

<?php

include(“functions.php”);

include(“config.php”);

connect($conn);

?>

We provide the array variable $conn to the function which contains all the sub-variables data of host & database ( as we set it in config.php ) required for establishing a connection.

End of part 1

That’s it so far! In this part we’ve createn the structure of the script for both files, functions & database purpose. And also we’ve made our first function to establish a connection to the database & host using the configurations for the  connection set in our config.php file we created. In the second part we’ll be creating a basic CSS, Div based 2 columns layout. With a side-bar menu and a main content area where all posts will be appearing. Hope to see you in the next part!

The Form

File: form_handle.php

<form method="POST" action="fom_handle.php">
 <input type="text" name="test_field">
 <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Send!">
</form>

Handling the form data

Ok in this form we made 2 fields. One text input field, we named ‘test_field’ and one submit button we called ’submit’ and already gave the value ‘Send!’ to it. Now once the submit button gets pressed, the data of the input fields will be send using the method POST to the file form_handle.php ( as set in the form tag ). This means all values of the input fields will be stored into $_POST['input_field_name'] variables. So in our case we got 2 input fields, and so 2 $_POST variables will be created. One for the field ‘test_field’, which will be stored in $_POST['test_field'], and one for the submit button field we called ’submit’, which will bestored in $_POST['submit']. So in this way the data will be send to the page once the form gets submitted using the form. The submit button we gave a default value already ‘Send!’ so for this input field always this variable will be created:

$_POST['submit'] = "Send!";

Once the form has been submitted. So we can actually CHECK if the form was submitted, by validating this:

<?php
if($_POST['submit'] == "Send!") { //form has been submitted correctly?

   //handle form data

}

  //show form

}
?>

Because when the form gets submitted, as mentioned above, for each field will be created a variable $_POST['field_name'] and given a value ( either filled in by user or the default value ) which is default set to ‘Send!’ for the submit button. So the variable $_POST['submit'] must have been created if the form was submitted and must be given the value ‘Send!’ to as we gave it that value inside the form submit button input field. But we also made another input field we called ‘test’. This field we didn’t gave a value and can be filled in by the user as it’s a “text” input field. Which looks like this:

And we want to show what the user filled in there. And as we know the data of the input fields are stored in $_POST['input_field_name'], we can get the data filled in for the field named ‘test’ from the variable $_POST['test']. So let’s do this. But of course only when the form was submitted this is possible, so we use the loop we created to check whether the form was submitted or not:

File: form_handle.php

<?php

if($_POST['submit'] == "Send!") { //form has been submitted correctly?

   //handle form data
   echo "Input field: 'test' - You filled in: ".$_POST['test'];

}else{ //not submitted? show form

?>

<form method="POST" action="fom_handle.php">
 <input type="text" name="test_field">
 <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Send!">
</form>

<?php

}

?>

When the form has not been submitted yet, this will output:

Once the form has been submitted this will output:

Input field: ‘test’ – You filled in: [here what the user filled in for this field]

Allright, so those are the basics of retrieving user input data. The same principe works for all other input fields such as checkboxes ( which get their value when they’re checked ), radio boxes, etc..

However there’s also a second method: the GET method. It works the same for retrieving the data, they’re put inside $_GET['input_field_name'] when submitting the form. However, they can be changed inside the url. As they’re now submited through url. Like:

form_handle.php?submit=Send!&test=what_the_user_filled_in_for_this_field

So it could be manipulated very easily by changing that inside the url, and beside that, the user can see all values of as well hidden input fields ( which are given a default value for example ) through url. For example you’d have an input field:

<input type='hidden' name='key' value='myverylongsecretkey2985230'>

Then once the form gets submitted using GET method you’ll see this key just in the url!

form_handle.php?key=myverylongsecretkey2985230

So you don’t want that. So usually POST methods are used for securely submitting form, user input data.

End of tutorial

We’ve come to the end of this small tutorial. Hope you learnt something in this tutorial and also have a look at the tutorial about User Input Validation. Which can nicely be combined with this tutorial on how to actually first RETRIEVE the user input data before validating it or anything. Enjoy!