[Tino]

Hi,

I am web designer and currently i am using a MAC. I am thinking about buying a Mac to do graphical stuff on! Can anyone tell me the architecture to link a database to a web front end using a MAC and what products you would use. As i would like to investigate before buying.

Thanks

Christina

[derbs]

hello Christina

before OS X it was pretty hard (read impossible) to link a website to a database using a Mac.

Now we have OS X (and i guess you will if you are buying a new mac) there are many options. The most popular is using a language called PHP (www.php.net) to write your pages, and link that to a MySQL database (www.mysql.com) - a very hardcore database. Best bit is they're both totally free of charge!

However, these products are pretty hard to administer, at the moment you can only do that from the command line (imagine creating a database like that!), although you could create your database in filemaker for example, and then import that.

My company standardises on the NT platform and ASP. So although i create the websites on my G4 we have an windows NT server sitting on the network for testing. Makes life a lot simpler. Much as I hate the windows platform, it's a lot easier to administer than unix

[VRL]

Have you looked at FileMaker Pro? (Not so impossible to do on a Mac. )

[ervier]

Originally posted by derbs:
<STRONG>The most popular is using a language called PHP (www.php.net) to write your pages, and link that to a MySQL database (www.mysql.com) - a very hardcore database. Best bit is they're both totally free of charge!

However, these products are pretty hard to administer, at the moment you can only do that from the command line (imagine creating a database like that!), although you could create your database in filemaker for example, and then import that.</STRONG>

If you're afraid to use the command line (terminal), then it may be better to use the NT-alternative, although even that is not for everyone. But there are alternatives. You could try http://www.macosguru.de/ to download their demo's. They only work for 10 days, but you'll see that suddenly MySQL isn't that difficult. And their php and jsp programs install both languages (without time limit), although the management tools time out after ten days.

Then there are other applications, I believe something like PHPMyAdmin, see:
http://www.phpwizard.net/projects/phpMyAdmin/

I believe this is free, and is a mysql management tool. Don't get confused by the name, it means that you need to install php to run this app. But macosguru can install that for you.

Then there is jsp, another serverside language, based on Java. You need Jakarta Tomcat to use this language. You can download this for free. The language is probably a bit more difficult, but Dreamweaver can handle this language (Dreamweaver Ultradev). I hope they will support PHP soon, but don't count on it. And I don't know Dreamweaver for OS9 in classic-mode can access MySQL. Probably not! But this is an option with a look at the future

See also http://developer.apple.com/internet/macosx/tomcat1.html for more information. But be warned, it never will hurt to learn unix, because you will need it if you are going to use all these apps.

[darcybaston]

These OS X solutions only work if the software is residing on the server itself right? As in there's no way to generate database driven content to an ftp server of an external paid-for host?

Darcy

[philzilla]

most servers are php/mysql compliant these days though. if you have access to an OS X mac, then i advise you check out this page for info about setting up your mac to deal with mysql. there's php info there too

[Raman]

Regardless, at this point you'll run into many walls if you want to do anything major, unless you use off the shelf tools like webobjects or something.

Your best bet at this point (if you want to use osx) is to use php/mysql/phpmyadmin/apache at this piont. Or if you like jsp then use tomcat. Beware that you'll read alot of confilicting documentation and rip your hair out before you get it stable and working the way you want.

OTOH, if you have a decent peecee you can do your design on the Mac and then copy the HTML files and do your development on the PC where you should load a copy of sql server and run iis with asp. You will be able to have this set up in a few hours. If you want to use a very lightweight database for prototyping then you can use ms access.

-raman

[vsurfer]

just curious as to what people think of coldfusion/ultradev as a solution to all this.

[ervier]

Originally posted by vsurfer:
<STRONG>just curious as to what people think of coldfusion/ultradev as a solution to all this.</STRONG>

Not a real solution yet if you want to use OSX. When Ultradev for OSX is there, it still won't solve all of this, because you still need that database, and you still need to configure Tomcat.

And if you want to use OS9, it's there, but you still need a database connection, and does Tomcat run on OS9? So you probably need another computer running linux or 2000 for the webserver. So this is still not a complete solution.

[John Nicholas]

Originally posted by ervier:
<STRONG>
And if you want to use OS9, it's there, but you still need a database connection, and does Tomcat run on OS9? So you probably need another computer running linux or 2000 for the webserver. So this is still not a complete solution.</STRONG>

Tomcat 3.x runs on OS9, Tomcat 4 does not. I actually think Tomcat 3.x is the best webserver option for OS9 especially since the code will be portable to another platform later.

[dogzilla]

Originally posted by darcybaston:
<STRONG>These OS X solutions only work if the software is residing on the server itself right? As in there's no way to generate database driven content to an ftp server of an external paid-for host?

Darcy</STRONG>

Actually, you definitely *can* do this. The thing to keep in mind is that "middleware" solutions like PHP and Perl (via mod_perl) are pretty much complete programming languages, with a bunch of web/internet-specific things thrown in. So, for example, PHP has the capability to act as an ftp client, allowing you to take data from a form, do a database search on it, generate a page from the results, and then upload the whole thing to an FTP site.

Additionally, the biggest advanatage (as I see it) of having PHP and Apache and MySQL running is that you're able to replicate a production-level web serving environment on your desktop/laptop. I do all my development on my PowerBook (including graphics/Flash development and database/PHP development) and then just copy everything over to my FreeBSD servers, where it runs with no (or very little) modification.

Lastly - it's possible to use Filemaker as a back-end database for websites, but it's an incredibly painful process. The middleware is buggy, Filemaker is slow, Filemaker databases have an interface inextricably linked to the data (which slows things down further) and the software you need is expensive. In cont4rast, MySQL/Apache and PHP are all free, rock stable, insanely fast, and incredibly flexible. In short, it's well worth putting in the effort to learn Apache/MySQL/PHP (or Perl). I've only used NT/IIS/ASP briefly, since it did nothing that I couldn't do with the free software, and I was concerned about NT's security issues.