What am I looking at here?

[DKG]

OK,
I have hesitated for weeks to ask this, but I[nbsp][nbsp]"ain't gettin nowhere"... I also realise that you all know what is best for the server, what capabilities it already has, etc.
So I'm going to ask a HUGE favor. :o

If you go to my site http://www.goldtalk.com/today.htm , you'll see what I'm up against.[nbsp][nbsp]It's embarrassingly simple, but I thought I would learn this stuff much more quickly than I have. (I also want to keep it very browser compatible until I get a better/longer view of my logs)

The goals:
To simplify both the daily updates of the "today" page, and to improve navigation of the archived notes.

While most similar sites do it (navigation) the way I have now, I hate it.[nbsp][nbsp]I thought I could keep the archives in the forum where people could respond to them.[nbsp][nbsp]But with the quantity (Terra would hate me! ;) ), and the inefficiency of re-formatting the articles to discus' format, I gave that idea up quick!

Here's what I have had to do every weekday:
My husband types out the day's notes in an e-mail & sends it to me ~ an hour before showtime.
I clean up his atrocious grammar & typos etc in Word** ;)
Then, I open my copy of the current "today" page, re-name it by its date, add a link to the "real" today, close it, move it to the archives/today directory, update the links (thank God for Dreamweaver.)
re-open the original "today" (usually in homesite)
Cut out yesterday's article, paste in today's which may not include raw links or my center cell explodes)
Mark it up & add a link to yesterday's page
Then, I need to add graphics, links & explanations re any books/guests he's having on the show that day, or week maybe.

I thought this would be easy to do via SSI, databases, forms, whatever - the options are endless, right? Yes. Problem is, I'm overwhelmed with options and the time it takes to learn them from scratch.
I would like to automate as much of this as possible.[nbsp][nbsp]I would especially like another page of archive links which give not only the date, but topics.[nbsp][nbsp]
I have thought about creating a form in which he could type the topic, note, and links in their given fields.[nbsp][nbsp]Then, use those fields to draw the pages.[nbsp][nbsp]But, I can't let him upload it by himself; he doesn't know html, and like I said, his writing is awful (the guy's brilliant, has a masters in journalism, but after 20 years, he tries to write like he speaks & has forgotten about things like punctuation ARRGGHH)
But, I can't keep spending over an hour every day doing this - especially with such poor results.[nbsp][nbsp]There are too many other things I need to do on the site, and I am a very busy mom.

I have studied & studied. I considered using Access, then translating before upload.[nbsp][nbsp]Nahhh.[nbsp][nbsp]Now, I'm determined to use PHP & MySQL.[nbsp][nbsp]If you all think that's best.[nbsp][nbsp]
Is it?[nbsp][nbsp]Is it really hard? or relatively simple?[nbsp][nbsp]I am a quick study, I just hate spending so much time learning things I can't (or shouldn't) use.

Help? Please? What am I looking at here? I have until the end of June.

*can anyone think of a better name for that page than "today?" - we don't do weekends, and expect to miss days here & there

**I have Office 97 Pro (includes Access) - I would love to find a way to use Word's grammar & spell check - is that way out of reach?

[pdstein]

Hi DKG

PHP and mySQL could definitely simplify the process for you.[nbsp][nbsp]Here’s what I would do:

Create one PHP script that would allow you to submit and edit completed articles into a form.[nbsp][nbsp]The script would process the submitted/editted article and store it with the date into an mySQL table.[nbsp][nbsp]Then create a second PHP script to replace the “today” page, and give it the following capabilities:
- Receive a date variable, get the article from mySQL with that date, and display it.
- If no date is specified, get the most recent article from mySQL, and display it.
- Generate the links to the back issues dynamically by reading the dates of all the articles stored in the mySQL table ordered by date.

With these two scripts in place all you would have to do is copy and paste an article into your submission form and the current article would be updated as well as all the links to back issues.[nbsp][nbsp](You would still receive your husbands info via email and check spelling and grammar with Word)

Whether PHP and mySQL are easy to learn is debatable.[nbsp][nbsp]If you have some programming background such as C, it shouldn’t be too hard.[nbsp][nbsp]If your only experience is with HTML the concepts might be a little tougher to grasp, but there’s lots of documentation out there, mailing list support, and several people on FQ that might offer some tips.

If you’re interested in getting it done fast, email me. I could probably do it in a day.

- Paul
paul@ourchurch.com

[DKG]

Paul,
Thank you very much!
My only background is a bit of Basic, which I took in college.[nbsp][nbsp]I've been reading the Core Programming book, and I see the similarities.[nbsp][nbsp]Actually PHP looks easier.[nbsp][nbsp]I'm trying to get a grasp on MySQL at the same time, so I'll know how they interact.
But the best news is that it is a good solution![nbsp][nbsp]I wont be so impatient to see if I'm barking up the wrong tree. ;)
Give me a week or two and you may be hearing from me. :)