Dynamic Website

Question

Hi Guys,
I have created my dynamic website and it works alright, but I need assistant with orginization of my files.
I have putting together an on-line store for products such as jeans.  My SQL data based is designed as follow:   categories (denim, non denim) body ( boot cut, flare, skinny and etc), style ( style number, description and 4 photos for each style)  These photos are listed in PHP with a  specific number assigned to them like st001.jpg . In Dreamweaver I linked image folder to the area where the photos are to be repeated all the way down the page for each style
I will have over 500 SKU ( style Number) each SKU will have 4 photos. How would I be able to organize all these photos in folders?
I found the reapeating region easy andI am planning to use my data base and use the repeat region method to list all the style number.  Do I put 2000 puts in a Image folder, or do I create a main image folder and add sub-folder for each body such as skinny, boot cut, flare and etc.  I also need to fiter these styles based on wash, rise, body and etc. if that make sense.
Please help me with the correct  and easy method to do this task.
I also would like the shopper to be able to magnify on the photo.  I am using the "thickbox widget" for my gallery. Please tell me if this is the correct way or suggest if there is better method.
Thank you so much and everyone have a happy holiday.

Answer 1

bobbak2011 wrote:
Well I need a specific look for my website for high end designer clothing. Most shopping bag software I came a cross were really basic.  If there are shopping bags that have good datbase features available i would like to link them in dreamweaver to my website.
Of course, i would not put all the photos and for each style on one page.  They will be displayed in different pages with filtering capabilities built in to the each page.
Look should be the least of the concerns.  Most pre-built apps can be skinned to match your site.
I am attaching an image to this post to describe details below.  It is of a wireframe of your database structure (images are easier to talk with then text in many cases).
As you describe it you have 4 tables right now and you are trying to organize images.  The 4 tables you describe having now are:
Products - Contains product data, pricing, and subcategory information
Categories - Denim, etc.
Body - Boot cut, etc.
Style - Style number, etc.
In the diagram you will see text in 2 colors, red and blue.  The Blue text columns are your primary keys and the Red are where foreign keys should lie.  Because there are foreign keys the tables should be setup with the InnoDB engine as opposed to the default myisam.  The foreign keys create the proper dependancies to ensure the integrity of the data so that all fields entered in are valid (this will help a lot with updating down the road).
Next, is your images.  The table 5 is a very basic depiction of what your images table should look like.  At the very least you need to know the path, alt_tag (in case image doesn't load and to make page valid), and a foreign key on the product_id column linking to your products table.  To make things easier on your script you should have all the images in one folder.  The database will do the heavy lifting to sort the pictures to the proper items.  And because you have multiple images for each product you have an "Order_By" column to that table as well to ensure that they are printed in the proper order.
Lastly is the query.  Your query should have the LIMIT and utilize the "offset" to select the specific rows within that range.  More info on the offset can be found here ( http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/select.html ).  The page listing query will select the first image for each product and basic information.  Then run a loop to print X number of items to the screen.  Then for your product detail page gather all the data from the multiple tables and you should be good to go.
That should get you started.  If you have any questions post back.