need advice on site architecture

Round Right Farm is a farm that offers a vegetable subscription
service ( aka CSA). We currently have a website (roundrightfarm.com)
which is mostly informational. I want to add some server side
capabilities but have no knowledge of sever-side languages. I only
know html/css and a wee bit of javascript.

our subscription service currently works like this: customers sign up
and pay at the beginning of the season (before June ) and a box of
produce is delivered to a location near them where they pick it up
once a week during the harvest season (june-september). Right now,
the contents of the box are the same for every customer and are chosen
by the farm based on what is in season and available.

I want to give the customer more choice by allowing them to see online
what the standard box will be that week and to give them the option to
make make substitutions based on a list of what is available and also
to give them the option to purchase additional items that week.

This will involve several features:
1. an easy way for me to update the site each week and display which
items are currently available
2. a login page for customers to access a form to indicate their
weekly choices, both substitutions and additional items
3. an easy way for me to access and print our customers weekly choice
data
4. an account page for each customer that will display current
balance, subtract additional item purchase prices from the balance,
and allow them to add money to their balance using a credit card
5. a way to store the record of customer choice throughout the season.

to set this all up is my excuse to learn more about server side web
design, so I am looking for advice on the best language(s) to make
this a reality and also some tips on the best general architecture of
the site- the easiest way to make this all work

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed stevevortigern (AT) gmail (DOT) com writing
in news:7c35d98d-44ad-4dbd-85fd-785e64c61910
@t54g2000hsg.googlegroups.com:

Round Right Farm is a farm that offers a vegetable subscription
service ( aka CSA). We currently have a website (roundrightfarm.com)
which is mostly informational. I want to add some server side
capabilities but have no knowledge of sever-side languages. I only
know html/css and a wee bit of javascript.

Nice site. I wish I were closer to you - I'm in Glendale, California.

our subscription service currently works like this: customers sign up
and pay at the beginning of the season (before June ) and a box of
produce is delivered to a location near them where they pick it up
once a week during the harvest season (june-september). Right now,
the contents of the box are the same for every customer and are chosen
by the farm based on what is in season and available.

Yum! But what if there's something in there I don't like, like okra or
eggplant? Believe me, I've tried and tried to like those veggies, but I
just don't.

I want to give the customer more choice by allowing them to see online
what the standard box will be that week and to give them the option to
make make substitutions based on a list of what is available and also
to give them the option to purchase additional items that week.

There's the ticket - no eggplant or okra.

This will involve several features:
1. an easy way for me to update the site each week and display which
items are currently available
2. a login page for customers to access a form to indicate their
weekly choices, both substitutions and additional items
3. an easy way for me to access and print our customers weekly choice
data
4. an account page for each customer that will display current
balance, subtract additional item purchase prices from the balance,
and allow them to add money to their balance using a credit card
5. a way to store the record of customer choice throughout the season.

to set this all up is my excuse to learn more about server side web
design, so I am looking for advice on the best language(s) to make
this a reality and also some tips on the best general architecture of
the site- the easiest way to make this all work

I would suggest PHP and MySQL. PHP is pretty easy, and so is MySQL.
There is plenty of documentation for each.

I would create three areas of the site. One for casual visitors (like
me), one for customers who are signed up, and one for you to make edits
to the site (backoffice).

You already have the casual side made - no problem. Then for customers,
create a customer table and an order table. For backoffice, create a
table with products, eg:
CREATE TABLE products
(id INT AUTO_INCREMENT NOT NULL,
title VARCHAR(50),
description VARCHAR(250),
category_id INT,
price DECIMAL(5,2),
imgsrc VARCHAR(50),
added DATETIME,
lastupdate DATETIME,
status VARCHAR(2),
PRIMARY KEY(id)
);
CREATE TABLE categories
(id INT AUTO_INCREMENT NOT NULL,
category VARCHAR(50),
added DATETIME,
lastupdate DATETIME,
status VARCHAR(2),
PRIMARY KEY(id)
);

Good luck, if you need help, you can get me at
arbpen (AT) adrienneboswell (DOT) invalid (replace invalid with com).
--
Adrienne Boswell at Home
Arbpen Web Site Design Services
http://www.cavalcade-of-coding.info
Please respond to the group so others can share

On 09/11/08 12:29 pm, stevevortigern (AT) gmail (DOT) com wrote:

Round Right Farm is a farm that offers a vegetable subscription
service ( aka CSA). We currently have a website (roundrightfarm.com)
which is mostly informational. I want to add some server side
capabilities but have no knowledge of sever-side languages. I only
know html/css and a wee bit of javascript.

This will involve several features:
1. an easy way for me to update the site each week and display which
items are currently available
2. a login page for customers to access a form to indicate their
weekly choices, both substitutions and additional items
3. an easy way for me to access and print our customers weekly choice
data
4. an account page for each customer that will display current
balance, subtract additional item purchase prices from the balance,
and allow them to add money to their balance using a credit card
5. a way to store the record of customer choice throughout the season.

I suggest you hire someone to do the initial installation. Then you can

advance your skills from there.
What you have outlined is not particularly difficult. But there are a
number of issues that can cause novices problems: form validation,
cross-site scripting, sql injection.

--
jmm (hyphen) list (at) sohnen-moe (dot) com
(Remove .AXSPAMGN for email)