ThumbsUp

[blue_vision]

I would like to add a positive rating system to my website so that individuals can rate a business without any log-in system etc as it's more of a homemade phone listing type site.

I don't want a rating system with 5 stars, reviews, or a negative button but just to be able to give a "25 people likes this" or "60 thumbs up" or "35 positive"... along those lines.

This would have been perfect I think:

http://codecanyon.net/item/thumbsup/full_screen_preview/50411

But I have machighway server that is not compatable with whatever SQLite is...

Do I have any options? Thanks!

[Stephen Philbin]

What's machighway? I'm assuming the host machine is a Mac, but is machighway the name of your HTTP server, hosting package branding, or something else? I know you can install MySQL on a Mac, and there should be no end of these ratings things that are built to run with MySQL.

[blue_vision]

It's a hosting plan and I have the large...

http://machighway.com/hostingplans.php

I know you can install MySQL on a Mac, and there should be no end of these ratings things that are built to run with MySQL.

Don't want to sound like a dumb dumb but I will... I'm still building websites with html/css for the most part. I don't understand what MySQL is exactly. Any links to places that sell what your talking about or tutorials?

I'll google in the meantime but if anybody knows anything good off the top of their head it would be helpful.

Thanks!

[criterion9]

Most commonly php is used with mysql, though you can use just about any server-side language with mysql.

http://www.tizag.com/mysqlTutorial/
http://www.w3schools.com/PHP/php_mysql_intro.asp
http://dev.mysql.com/tech-resources/articles/mysql_intro.html

[blue_vision]

Thanks for the links! I read through several pages of all of them. Although the languages look pretty quick and easy to learn I'm afraid it might take me a bit longer then I hoped to create what I need going that route (although I will do those tutorials on my own time as I'm sure I need to learn that stuff if I continue with very much web development).

If anybody has a link to some free or cheap premade ones that work well or there are experienced users wanted to earn some quick beer cash please let me know. I really would like this feature right away.

Thanks again for the links and I will positively be using them!

[Stephen Philbin]

I don't know where you'd get a stand-alone rating system. I had a quick look on opensourcecms.com to see if they had a modules/plugins type of section for something like a rating system, but I couldn't find one. I guess the idea there is that you just pick a CMS as a whole based on what features you want your site to provide.

Not really sure how easy it'd be to find just a stand-alone ratings system. The database component could be done rather generically, but the user interface component could be rather site-dependent and might mean that making something like a ratings system that people could just drop in to their site might not be practical.

I think it might be just about simple enough of a task for it to be an ideal starting place for you to learn about server-side languages and databases, though. If you do decide to take this opportunity to learn, then I'd recommend learning about the basics of databases first. The subject or database design, usage and administration is rather large and quickly becomes more and more complex with each step you take down the path or learning. However, given the relative simplicity of your needs--basically just a per-item counter that can be incremented and decremented--you won't have to jump straight in to the more complex aspects of databases. It really is the ideal first step for learning. Just enough to get the toes wet. ;)

Once you've got used to the basic first steps of making a database you can then start with the server-side (PHP?) stuff. PHP (and most other server-side languages), are also pretty big topics. Almost anything you want to do with a site will probably need some sort of server processing via something like PHP, but you have a very narrow and specific need which means you can just focus on one aspect (database interaction) without having to attempt to learn about any other features of the language.