I've been asked to create an app that will get data back from a database where the CMS will be Wordpress. I've never used a CMS so I'm trying to get a (overview)picture in my head of how it could all work and what each of the components would be. And what a CMS actually brings to the party.
Creating the app itself is pretty clear. I've done a few already. I've made a database before and shouldnt cause a problem.
But what is going to be in the middle between the app and the database?
Part A:
I'm guessing iphone apps typically would call some php file that's hosted on the server? The php then would make a call to the database and return the data somehow, maybe as xml. But this is really basic and wouldnt require a CMS. Just a database and a phpfile, or am I wrong?
Part B:
If i wanted to run a check on the database every minute to see if any of the data in database was no longer valid and remove it if needed, that would require somekind of program running on the server. So that program would be Wordpress, since it is managing the content, so a content management system is actually needed and is for these kind of taskes. Am i understanding the role of CMS?
Many Thanks,
-Code
Part A: Yes, that's definitely how it would normally work. Of course, you're not accessing "a" database, you're accessing the database WordPress creates, but otherwise, sure.
Part B: The role of a CMS is to provide a structured, easily-edited way of presenting information. It abstracts both the database and the user interface stuff, allowing the CMS administrator to CRUD data via the use of simple forms.
In your case, no, you wouldn't (usually) ask the WordPress software to provide information because it's not set up to provide data that's programmatically requested. Instead it's designed to display HTML pages with the data embedded. The WordPress software is specifically for humans to CRUD the data through a human-friendly interface. You'd write your own, as in Part A.
This article shows some basic PHP for retrieving blog entries and user comments, likely most of what you'd want. The WordPress database format is well-documented: here's an article that lays it out and provides more PHP examples for retrieving the information.
Have a look how the Wordpress for iOS team is doing it:
http://ios.wordpress.org/development/
I would not try to access the db directly or through some custom php-code, but use the official WordPress API (which uses xml-rpc) instead.
and this xml-rpc objective-c library might even make this a pretty straightforward exercise?
Related
I am new to Squarespace and I was wondering if it can interact with an external Rest-API using JSON?
For example, say I have a Database being hosted privately and I want data from it to be shown via Squarespace and certain pages being restricted according to the user's privileges.
Is any of the above possible, and if so can you direct me to an example? I seem not to be able to find anything on the above via google.
Thanks
From Squarespace:
Squarespace doesn’t support server-side code, including PHP, Ruby, Ruby on Rails, and SQL.
Therefore, the only way to connect to an external API (besides those supported by Squarespace's official 'extensions') is to use "client-side" (in-browser) JavaScript.
So, the database solution which you use must be capable of securely handling client-side connections (for example, Firebase can do that). To interface with it, you must add the JavaScript to your Squarespace site via code block or code injection. An example explanation of doing that can be found at this question.
As to allowing/disallowing content based on data returned from the database, it can be done, but only client-side. That means that, while you can make the site appear to restrict access and/or make it inconvenient for others to access certain pages based on information in the database, because it is all client-side, it could technically be circumvented by someone if they are familiar with web-development, web-inspector, etc. So it's not something you'd want to do if it is critical that the content be truly restricted.
Squarespace does have its own "Members Areas" which can be used to solve content access problems. However, it's extremely limited at the moment, and there are many scenarios it does not address.
I've looked around the site to see if there are any people who have changed the CKAN API interface so that instead of uploading documents and databases, they can directly type onto the site, but I haven't found any use cases.
Currently, we have a page where people upload data sets through excel forms that they've filled out, but we want to make it a bit more user friendly by changing the API so that they can fill out a form on the page rather than downloading the template, filling it out and then uploading it.
Does CKAN have the ability to support this? If so, are there any examples or use cases of websites that have use forms rather than uploads?
This is certainly possible.
I'm not aware of any existing extensions that provide that functionality, but you can check the official list of CKAN extensions if there's anything that fulfills your needs.
If there is no existing extension that suits you then you could write your own, see the extension guide for details on how to do that.
Adding an API function to CKAN's API is possible, but probably not what you want in this case: the web UI usually does not interact with CKAN via the API but via Flask/Pylons controllers. Hence, you would add your add controller which first serves your form and then processes the submitted inputs.
You can take a look at the ckanext-pages extension, which does exactly that (for editing static pages instead of datasets, but your code would be similar).
I am looking to build software that has an Iphone application as well as a Wordpress based website. Essentially the user will enter data into the iphone app that will then be relayed to the Wordpress site and displayed in various manners.
Whats the best way to get the iphone database and CMS database to communicate?
Thanks
This might go without saying, but generally speaking I would try to keep your client (iPhone) app as 'dumb' as possible; Your Wordpress DB should really own all of the content, and the data stored on the iPhone should be as temporal as possible. To put it another way, your app should be like a WP theme. A theme doesn't really 'know' about the WP database - it's just responsible for displaying it (and occasionally adding to it with things like comment forms).
Anyway, as for the actual communication I would recommend keeping as much in JSON as possible (I've found it easier than XML). There's a great plug-in for Wordpress that can help you out, that exposes WP functionality in a JSON-based API: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/json-api/
As for working with JSON on the phone itself, I highly recommend the json-framework: http://code.google.com/p/json-framework/ . In short, it'll convert a JSON string into an NSDictionary in one method. Incredibly useful.
Good luck!
May be it's too obvious, but usually for database communicaton used XML, CSV, JSON etc.
I'm considering Wordpress as my CMS platform for a client site I'm doing at the moment.
However, I need to create a couple of custom 'modules'. One of these modules is a form that people will be able to complete and have a quote, and once submitted, in a special place in the Wordpress panel (like a menu or something), there will be a listing of all the submitted quotes (just fetching it from a table in my database).
Another one is to manage a cafeteria menu, so the client can add a different meal to each day of the week.
I know perfectly how to do this kind of things using some kind of MVC framework and doing it 'by-hand', but I'm just wondering if this would be possible to do with WP and if yes, what kind of tools I'll have to use.
Thanks
Quite simply, yes, WordPress would be a more-than-capable asset to your criteria. But it's whether the learning curve in getting to know WP outweighs using a framework you're clearly already familiar with?
Personally, it sounds you like you're pretty solid with PHP, and considering the fact that, in my opinion, what you're planning on doing is relatively easy, I'd say WordPress is an excellent solution.
I'd recommend reading about WordPress 3.0's new custom post type API, and skimming the basics of hooks and filters in the Plugin API.
Submitted quotes would merely be a custom post type. You'd be better off writing the front-end code (like handling the form, UI etc.) yourself, either within a theme or plugin, then using wp_insert_post and let WordPress handle all the database administration. In fact, WP will go one step further and set up the entire admin for viewing, editing and deleting quotes.
Post meta (also known as custom fields) is also there for you if you need to store additional information about a quote that doesn't quite fit the post's table structure.
For the menu, this is even easier. I'd say just create a post category called 'Menu', and the client can publish 'dishes' to it as you would with a blog or any similar rolling format.
I've only licked the surface here. Get stuck in with the above, then check out some other goodies like meta boxes and custom taxonomies!
If you want to try a plugin instead of writing something yourself, Flutter might work. It's a little unpolished sometimes but it makes this sort of thing an absolute breeze.
I'm trying to make a page with 2 fields (email and feedback) and 1 button. When the user clicks on the button, a table on a page else where is filled in with the data, permanently.
Does anyone have recommendations of how I should do this? I'd like to avoid having a script send me an email, or writing to a database. But if I have to, which ever is easier to configure would be prefered.
Thanks,
Matt
So you want a comments system like you find on most blogs? You'll need to store those comments somewhere, probably in a database. As for how to do it, that would depend entirely on what you already know and what the site is currently written in. You could use PHP and MySql if you already have those skills, or ASP.Net/SQL Server, or if you want to be down with the cool kids you can use Ruby on Rails or Python/Django.
If you post what languages you already have experience in, and/or what the site is written in you might get a more specific answer :-)
There're 2 types of scripts: server side and client side. The client side script (JavaScript) stores info only for particular visitor on his computer and this can't be seen by anybody else.
You need a server side script to save feedback on the server. The language or technology depends on the hosting server you use. Not all hosting services allows server side scripts. You need first to find out what scripting languages and technologies are supported by your hosting provider. Then we can help you more.
ADD:
For an unexperienced persons I recommend to search for hosting services which has most needed functionality. Something like blogs, etc. On such services you could create pages that will have comments and feedback and many more.
While it may seem outdated it's not necessarily a bad design. You can use PHP or Perl (due to it's string parsing capabilities) and simply store the main page on the disk.
Here's your sudo code/design...
You'll need need an html page that looks as follows
<tr><td>email</td><td>comment 1</td></tr>
<tr><td>email 2</td><td>comment 2</td></tr>
<tr><td>email 3</td><td>comment 3</td></tr>
Then you'll need a php script page that will read this html file in and display it.
The php page will also contain code for dealing with a user submitted comment. When a user posts a comment you need to open the html page with the rows in it and append to that file.
You need to be careful with this design however because you may run into write concurrency issues if two people attempt to read the file at the same time. Add code to handle this gracefully accordingly.