[spectre]

I've just recently gotten a job working for the local town historical society for the summer. The people involved in this are generally older volunteers and don't have any experience with computers at all (or any knowledge of their capabilities). As such, all of the inventory on various heritage buildings, etc. are just kept in boxes in the same building with no backups at all. I'm considering creating some sort of computer database that could act not only as a backup of all the information, but a database that could be searchable, and published to the web. When browsing the city web page, a user would be able to view the database with his web browser, search, and view the inventory.

I have both access to Microsoft Access 2000 (on windows) and Filemaker 7 Pro (on mac). With either of these programs (or something else, if anyone has a suggestion), would it be possible to create something that could be published, or exported, so that it could be viewed on the web and the original program would not at all be required? I wont be around after this summer, so I want to have the database accessible by the web without the need to have filemaker on the client side, or the server side. In other words, I'd like a program that could publish the database as almost a separate entity.

It might also be nice if the database could somehow be accessed on the web on different levels; that is, an admin could log onto it with a username and password, edit text, add photos, or whatever, while a guest could login just to view the database.

I'm pretty new to this sort of thing, and I only have very limited knowledge of mysql and php... so any suggestions as to what program[s] I should use would be great. Or could I simply do this with HTML?

[larkost]

FileMaker Developer (an additional product) can make stand-alone databases, and the regular version (included in Developer) can be used as a not-too-complicated way of getting the databases on the web (in a limited way). If not many people will be hitting the web site, at a time, and if the stand-alone versions of the database do not need to keep in lock-step with the server based version, then FileMaker is best solution for non programmers.

Mac/Win compatible, Easy to use, handles mid-sized databases (tens of thousands of records) well, and can handle multiple levels of users. The one things to warn you about on the web side of thing is that the non-server versions are limited in the numbers of IP addresses they will talk to at a given time.

[spectre]

Originally posted by larkost:
FileMaker Developer (an additional product) can make stand-alone databases, and the regular version (included in Developer) can be used as a not-too-complicated way of getting the databases on the web (in a limited way). If not many people will be hitting the web site, at a time, and if the stand-alone versions of the database do not need to keep in lock-step with the server based version, then FileMaker is best solution for non programmers.

Mac/Win compatible, Easy to use, handles mid-sized databases (tens of thousands of records) well, and can handle multiple levels of users. The one things to warn you about on the web side of thing is that the non-server versions are limited in the numbers of IP addresses they will talk to at a given time.

I don't imagine that the database would be accessed very often at all on the net. I'd imagine at most, maybe a couple of people would access it online at one time. So I would be able to publish the database to the web (using the standard version of filemaker), take the database that was published, put it on a windows based server that does not have filemaker, and then access it from any computer with a browser and internet access? I'm (obviously) unfamilier with database software.. but I'll try to give it a test run this weekend and see if it will work. I may simply have to do it in HTML, for the database is only about 60 buildings... althought it would be nice if it was scalable for future additions.

Oh, and in what way is filemaker limited at getting a database on the web?

[larkost]

take the database that was published, put it on a windows based server that does not have filemaker, and then access it from any computer with a browser and internet access?

No. FileMaker has to be involved in serving up the pages.

If we are only talking about a group of 60 buildings (with only a single page for each), then this is definitely a job for PHP or Perl. If it is the former, then wget it to a folder, and pass that out to people. If it is Perl, then just create the files from the get-go.

Then you can pass this out, and put it on a simple we server as static pages.

[spectre]

Thanks for the help - looks like filemaker isn't the thing for me.

I think I'll start by building just an HTML site, much like this one: http://www.newwestheritage.org/Homestour/map.html

And I'll look for a free script to act as a search engine for all the html files that have bulding information, etc.

After this, I may want to create a site like this one: http://www.vernonmuseum.ca/search.html

Do you know how such a site would be made?

Thanks once again.

[Macola]

Take a look at Open-Realty. It's designed for real estate but can easily be adapted to your needs (from what I understand of your description). I'm currently using it to develop a site for a client. It's open-source, uses PHP/mySQL, free, and very customizable.

I would simply go with a web-hosted application, rather than having a separate internal version and a web version. After all, anything on the web can also be accessed internally, and you can set up permission levels as required.

[spectre]

Originally posted by Macola:
Take a look at Open-Realty. It's designed for real estate but can easily be adapted to your needs (from what I understand of your description). I'm currently using it to develop a site for a client. It's open-source, uses PHP/mySQL, free, and very customizable.

I would simply go with a web-hosted application, rather than having a separate internal version and a web version. After all, anything on the web can also be accessed internally, and you can set up permission levels as required.

This looks like it could work quite well for what I need to do. Thanks for the suggestion - I'll try it out tonight.