«

Hey guys have a question. I have a website for a guild for a game.
This website has a list of several people, we are running a system where we
can award "points" and people can use them to buy things. But right now my
website is using all tables, so basically it is a huge pain in the butt to
change and update points. I have to go in and reset the tables etc, but
also we need the site to re sort itself to show the person with the highest
number of points. So I am basically looking for a way to list these people
and have an admin option or something where I can type in their name and
either add or subtract points from their current balance then have the
website resort the names to show in order the people with the most number of
points. How can I do this?

TIA
-Chris

While the city slept, Chris Stolworthy ()
feverishly typed...

> Hey guys have a question. I have a website for a guild for a game.
> This website has a list of several people, we are running a system
> where we can award "points" and people can use them to buy things.
> But right now my website is using all tables, so basically it is a
> huge pain in the butt to change and update points. I have to go in
> and reset the tables etc, but also we need the site to re sort itself
> to show the person with the highest number of points. So I am
> basically looking for a way to list these people and have an admin
> option or something where I can type in their name and either add or
> subtract points from their current balance then have the website
> resort the names to show in order the people with the most number of
> points. How can I do this?

This is the ideal job for a database. If you have decent web space you
should be able to run server-side scripts and have access to a database of
some sort (most likely SQL stylee). If so, you want to create a database
table of your members, with their info including points balance. Then a page
to extract this data and sort it by number of points (a very simple SQL
query). You can also build some admin pages so you can add/amend/delete
users, and adjust their points. If you or anyone else in your organisation
don't have the technical ability to do this, then employ someone to set it
up for you - I have very reasonable rates!

If you don't have the infrastructure to do this (ie. your webspace doesn't
allow it), you have a couple of options.

1. Move to web space that will allow this (doesn't have to be too expensive.
Affordable Host come to mind: http://www.affordablehost.com )
2. Set up some kind of offline database / spreadsheet for your data that
will export the results to a HTML table, and then slot that into your pages.
Make sure that whatever program you use for this doesn't spit out some kind
of horrendous tag soup! The online database version remains the ideal way to
do this, though.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,
Nige

--
Nigel Moss
http://www.nigenet.org.uk
Mail address not valid. , take the DOG. out!
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is very, very busy!

Chris Stolworthy wrote:

> Hey guys have a question. I have a website for a guild for a game.
> This website has a list of several people, we are running a system
> where we
> can award "points" and people can use them to buy things. But right
> now my website is using all tables, so basically it is a huge pain in
> the butt to
> change and update points. I have to go in and reset the tables etc,
> but also we need the site to re sort itself to show the person with
> the highest
> number of points. So I am basically looking for a way to list these
> people and have an admin option or something where I can type in their
> name and either add or subtract points from their current balance then
> have the website resort the names to show in order the people with the
> most number of
> points. How can I do this?

Definitely a case for a database as Nigel says. The site in my sig is a
small club site that is mostly driven by a mysql db and written out to
the page via a little php mixed in with the html. All the tables are
ordered via mysql queries and there is also an admin site in the
background for updates which are also done by a totally non-tech club
member via <select><option>'s and textarea's etc.
(It is actually hosted on http://www.affordablehost.com as well).


--
frostie
http://brightonfixedodds.net