Question: What is the standard practice for implementing basic website functionality?

[xerocool]

Hi all, I posted this in the networking section, but I heard Programming is probably the more appropriate forum for this kind of question.

I'm starting my own website which will have need for the basic ubiquitous functionality of login authentiation, registration, automated emails, private messaging, picture uploading, text searching, etc. which is found in alot of websites especially forum-based ones.

Just to be clear, I'm not starting up a forum website - I know there are autogenerators out there which can setup everything with the click of a button, but my requirements are such that I need to tailor alot of the PHP/SQL and HTML code to fit the website's purpose.

I've been going through alot of online documentation (mainly through Googling), but I was wondering if any Anandtechers know what the standard procedure is for implementing these kinds of services? Because they are so common, I figure that there has to be some de facto way of implementing registration/log-in and picture uploading (not to mention the backend of how to save/store and sort through this information later).

So far, I've written all the code myself with help from literature that I find online, but I have to ask myself (and you all) whether there's a better faster way and possibly more secure as well, i.e. some Guru somewhere wrote the book on text searching through multiple posts and everyone just uses his code - infact I'm quite concerned about searching and how to do in a smart way that will have the least impact on servers but I can't seem to find anything good other than the standard wildcard search method.

If anyone has any suggestions or links that I can follow up on that'd be really helpful. I know that some peoples' whole jobs are to work on questions like these, but I need a compromise between getting my site up and running and making it perfect.

I heard alot of people suggest management software such as Drupal - is it normal practice to use programs like this or write it all from scratch?

Cheers!
Xero

 

[milehigh]

You are basically rewriting functionality that already exists. I'm a cmsmadesimple user..so for example I do the base install and then add:

Front End Users-> User Authentication
Newletter Made Simple ->Email System
Picture Uploading ->Uploads Module
Search->Search Module

and so on..you get the point.

I'm sure a Joomla or Drupal user can chime in with more or less the same input.

I have a sandbox site at siboatdeals.com with an ecommerce module I'm working on. Basically...from start to finish I have what you see there in less than 15 minutes.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

I'll repost my response from your thread in the networking forum in case anyone else stumbles on this thread in search of the same information.

What you're looking for is a Content Management System (CMS). There are lots of free ones out there, I highly recommend Drupal personally. This will save you A LOT of time.

 

[xerocool]

so a follow up Q to this then - if i use CMS's that are freeware (i see Drupal is under a public license), then my commercial entity that i create - who owns it?

i'm not reselling the software, rather i'd be using the CMS to make/maintain a storefront that would net me money, but are there any legal precedences or implications of this?