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23 Aug 2016CPOL

Introduction

Interested in creating your own website? Ever wondered how cool is it to have a website that has a log-in/log-out functionality? Want to learn how to Create, Read, Update or Delete(CRUD) records in a database? Have you lost track on your previous tutorials? Well, I'm going to teach you how to create one from scratch where in you will know every single details on how the code works. If you are new to back-end web development, this tutorial is for you. I'll explain everything in detail so that you won't have to research some particular methods being used. We won't be using any frameworks to keep things simple. Also I won't be focusing on the websites design since were after the functionalities though, it's easy to implement the design. What will be doing is a simple item list when the users is logged in.

*Shameless plug*

You can also checkout my ASP.NET MVC 5 from scratch version right here.

I also have my NodeJS/Express with MongoDB version right here.

Pre-requisites

In this tutorial, we will be using some languages that will enhance our development. If you really don't know any of the things I will mention, it's ok. Just try to go with the flow. It's just easy to comprehend them since I'm not into using advanced methods for this one. Off course since this is creating a back-end service for a website, you must know at least the very very very basics of the following:

HTML/CSS - Off course this will never get off the list when it comes to web development. Why did I even bother place this? LOL.
JavaScript - For a redirecting script. No jQuery needed for now
mySQL - the most basic language for querying. We will be using this for our CRUD(Create, Read, Update, Delete) functionalities.

For the software, you will be needing the following:

Text Editor - Sublime Text/Notepad++ will do. This will serve as our coding environment.
XAMPP - This will be our web server. This is were we will be saving our website files and save our data to the database.
Web Browser - You can use any browser for as long as it doesn't eat much of your RAM.

Make sure to have those 3 installed. Do not proceed if your not done installing them. I already provided a hyperlink to make things faster.

For our agenda in this topic:

Utilize CRUD statements in SQL - Create, read, update and delete records in a database.
Simple authentication and security - Logging in and out, handling unauthorized users and restricting access.
Simple time and date manipulation - Displaying time and date postings and monitoring your posts.
Displaying public and private data - Simply display information for logged-in users only and for the public
De-briefing and Summary - Final output and some notes. FAQ's are also place here.

Topic Contents:

Note: In case you stopped on a certain part or want to search quickly , you can simply resume by pressing ctrl + f and look for the number where you last stopped

Setting up your server
Creating the public HTML Pages
Creating the database and it's tables
Adding users to the database
User log-in: Authentication
Setting up the home page for Logged-in users and Logging-out
Testing Page Security
Adding data to the list - User Access Only
Displaying data in the home page
Editing Data
Deleting data
Displaying public data
De-briefing and Summary

Make sure you follow chronologically. Don't proceed without accomplishing the previous part not unless you know the code.

Some reminders before we start:

Note: If the picture seems unclear/blurry, you can click it to view it on it's larger size. Also, pardon me for using images to display the codes rather than showing you a raw text because it can't format properly on my WordPress subscription but don't worry, I'll be uploading the finished product on the end of this tutorial to double-check your work.

1.) Setting up your server

Now that your all set and go, as the basics of programming goes, let's start by creating a simple shoutout of 'hello world' in our server.

First of, go to the directory where you installed your XAMPP (Commonly in C:xampp). From there go to the htdocs folder (Commonly in C:xampphtdocs) and create a folder named 'MyFirstWebsite'.

From that part, you have now created a Local URL for your website. That folder will be used to supply in all website files (.html, .php, .css, .js, etc.). Open up your text editor and let's get started!

I use sublime text as my text editor. If your using Notepad++ or any others, it's ok. It's not really a big factor but it's just a preference on which one would you like to use.

What we will do is a basic HTML page and display 'hello world' from the server using a basic PHP syntax. We then type the following syntax:

Save the file to the 'MyFirstWebSite' Folder and name it as 'index.php'. (Directory as seen on the top part of the image)

Now that you have the file. Let's now open your XAMPP control panel. In case it doesn't appear on your desktop, it is located in your XAMPP folder as seen on the image:

Now that it's there, Run your Apache and mySQL by clicking the 'Start' button on the actions column. You should see a random PID(s) and the default port number. Apache is the name of our web server wherein it will handle all the files as well as serve as the communication to the web browser and MySQL is our database which will store all of our information.

Open up your web browser and in the address bar, type localhost. You should see the menu of your XAMPP.

If it's the first time you run it, it will ask what language would you prefer, just simply pick and it will lead you to the menu. If you will noticed the directory is localhost/xampp, it's where the default page leads you even if you type in localhost.

If that appears, then it means that your XAMPP server is now running. Now let's try running the website you just placed. Try typing localhost/MyFirstWebsite. It should be the same as the picture below.

If you will notice that the URL is MyFirstWebsite, it is derived from the htdocs folder and it automatically reads files that are named 'index'(Be it index.html, index.aspx, etc), which serve as the default page. Typing localhost/MyfirstWebsite/index.php is just the same. You can also create your custom name for the URL by simply renaming the folder but let's just stick to MyFirstWebsite.

Note: If you don't have a file named index and you entered the URL, you will receive an error 404 for not having the file on the server. If you do have different files that are not named index.<extention>, you have to specify the specific file name. E.x: localhost/MyfirstWebsite/page.php

2.) Creating the public HTML Pages

Next, let's re-modify our website and add a registration link where our users can re

Introduction

Pre-requisites

For the software, you will be needing the following:

Make sure to have those 3 installed. Do not proceed if your not done installing them. I already provided a hyperlink to make things faster.

For our agenda in this topic:

Topic Contents:

Setting up your server

Creating the public HTML Pages

Creating the database and it's tables

Adding users to the database

User log-in: Authentication

Setting up the home page for Logged-in users and Logging-out

Testing Page Security

Adding data to the list - User Access Only

Displaying data in the home page

Editing Data

Deleting data

Displaying public data

De-briefing and Summary

Some reminders before we start:

1.) Setting up your server

2.) Creating the public HTML Pages

Php Project Script