NEW FEATURES? Gearlist database

elektro80 · Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2004 4:19 am Post subject: NEW FEATURES? Gearlist database

A suggestion.. it odoes not have to be integrated directly in this forum.. I don´t know a thing about PHP or mySQl, but this could be done.. at least in a RAD solution in Filemaker.. tested and then hopefully ported.

What I am thinking of is a kind of gearlist.. all sorts of gear from various vendors.. new and old..
Imagine that members buld a gearlist of what they have owned, what they have now etc. then we could browse for who might have something to say about the piece of gear or software,,, user advice etc.
Members could list gear but also choose to be anon .. but still have access to editing their own list. Product names should be standardized in order .. no duplicate entries. If a piece is old and is not supported anymore by the vendor.. or the manufacturer is "gone".. then cold attach files to the entry.. scans ( PDF format ) of the manual.. or whatever. Even photos etc etc. the idea is NOT to create a kind of synthmuseum.. rather a system for support, advice and reviews.

if something like this cold be put together in a smart way, we would have something far more interesting than the "similar" user comments/user reviews at sonicstate/harmnoy-central and others.

The database programming is not that big I imagine, but the PHP interface would be a pretty big job in order to set this up in a smart way.

there are similar systems out there already, but none are that good really and I trust this community to be able to add good info to such a system.

THis system could be used for bulidng personal gearlists.. You could build your own gearlist from existing entries, and just add "missing" gear.
You could search for people to ask about this or that piece of gear.. or post a message in the forum ..
You could have gear alerts.. posts in special forums that refer to special gear will trigger an alert and you will be notified.
the database could have various types of views.. like a reviews list.. all gear with reviews will show up... whatever...
or.. pdf manual listings.. just gear with PDF manuals will show..
... stolen gear..
????
Hmm...

Just a thought...
perhaps there are some mySQL and PHP monsters out there who could do this.. Howard is doing way too much already... Very Happy

Hmm.. perhaps one could have a fetaure to tag new and old posts with tags from the gearlist.. such will show as "related posts" or "opinion"... whatever.

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Another fetaure... a community map...
Some kind of mapping of member location .. ? We could restrict this to this planet only...

seraph

mosc · Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2004 7:54 am Post subject:

A great idea. I wish I had the time and energy to devote to this. Looks like it's time for Elektro80 to finally learn PHP. The MYSQL part is absolutely minimal.

If someone would like to hack this kind of thing, contact me via PM and I'll help you get started.

If anyone has PHP chops that would be willing to help program anything, please let me know via PM. I'm working of a very interesting project and could use the help.

If you are interested in programming dynamic web sites, PHP is probably the best language for this. It's worth learning, it's pretty easy, there are many books and lots of helpful sites on the web for support. PHP is free and runs on PCs and Macs so you can develop without a server and port later. It can be used as a general purpose programming language as well. PHP programming is a valuable job skill too. Idea

elektro80 · Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2004 2:39 pm Post subject:

So you found my idea interesting? Cool!

Yes, the actual mySQL stuff would probably be minimal, but not the PHP work.

Dunno, anyone else than Howard finding this of interest? I could consider learning PHP... possibly... or scream for help... Shocked

Mohoyoho · Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2004 11:52 pm Post subject:

I like the idea and think it would be a great resource to the community.