Is there a web programmer in the house?
I have decided I want to make a website, I have an idea of what I want it to be about. I need help because I don't really know how to make everything work. I want this site to function like Mahalo with all kinds of functions and things not just work like a blog, with a template. I think It's a script that I need right?
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M$5 Answers
What I have understand from your question is that you would like to create a website similar to Mahalo Answers, I am going to explain to you how you can do it but this website is not going to work like Mahalo as @robbrown told you.. It's not easy to do a website like Mahalo! but the good thing is this website can work good some how for your project and you will be able to impress your teacher!
Go a head hereto the Elgg open source application, it's a community based php script that need MySQL database!
Read about it, and after you install it you can get the Questions plugin that will turn this community to an Q&A website that will work fine for you you can check this Q&A Elgg demowebsite, it's ok to create an account and test it before you decide!
If you are interested on Elgg and you want to see more then here is a list of 10+ Communities and Social Networks Powered by Elgg.
Ok, this is not all! I notice that you want to create something like Craiglist, well.. I have also something that might work for you using Joomla CMS open source and adding the cool directory component named "SOBI 2" that you can modify with out needing to code, I have used this before on one of my projects for building a successful directory for schools!
I hope this will help! and Good Luck!
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
The question I see is:
How can I build a site like Mahalo?
Are you talking about the Mahalo Topic Pages, the task system, or Mahalo Answers?
For the Mahalo Topic Pages, it would be possible to re-purpose open source wiki code. For the task system, there are various task management systems that you could customize, but Mahalo Answers is a bit uniuqe. I don't think that an open source Q&A system exists that can do that - but I could be wrong.
For a senior project, I would start by completing a feasibility study of your ideas. If you haven't been taught how to form a proper feasibility study, ahave a look online, there are some good resources. Form feasibility studies until you find a project that you think you are interested in and can complete. Include each "scrapped" feasibility study in a preface section to your project. You'll likely receive quite a few bonus points if you do this properly.
Really think about what you're going to do though. Forming a system such as Mahalo is complicated. Mahalo has a whole team of very smart programmers and experienced system analyst folks working almost around the clock.
If your teacher is smart, he or she will recognize that _completing_ a project is just as important as picking a project that is interesting and challenging.
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
Tip for you because I agree that it's not easy to create an inelegant website like Mahalo!
True, my question was kind of vague. I'm trying to make a website, not like Mahalo but that functions like it. You click on a category and it goes to a page. I want something like Craiglist, but with better graphics.
Thanks @dward that's the stuff I have been reading. I want to know how to use them best.
Rob's on to something there. It's a pretty wide question but I think you probably want to use a simple WYS /WYG program (What You See is What You Get). This is an application that does the coding for you so you don't need to know HTML or JAVAscript, etc. Microsoft Word and Frontpage are some real simple to use examples. I'm not much on the opensource arena, Netscape use to have one and I bet Mozilla does too. You create your webpage in this save the html or xml file then upload it to your webserver. And your done. Or you could use a application on your webserver. Yahoo and Geocities both use to have web applications where you build your pages right there.
"Intelligent " ! sorry for the type :)
by the way I am going to add my answer here because this is my area some how!
Currently the two popular CMS platforms are Drupal and Joomla. I do some work in Drupal, so if you decide to use it and have questions, you can direct message me with them.
You also need a place to host your website. This will cost some money but these days basic hosting is cheep. Lately I've been using http://nearlyfreespeech.net which offers a pay-as-you go plan that I throw $5 every couple months to run my Drupal testing stuff.
I would add that even if you go this route, it would still be good to learn some HTML, which isn't difficult at all and can be used to mark up documents in Drupal. Obvious place to start for that is http://www.w3schools.com
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
Trevor
experience
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
I would suggest you start by outlining (on paper) what you want your finished product to do. This should have a fair amount of detail and fully explain what happens when a site visitor comes to your site. When I work with a client I find if they can put themselves in the shoes of the site user then they can get a different perspective on the design of the site.
You might want to consider Joomla or DotNetNuke, both of these offer templates and a modular design layout that you can build you site from. I also would not write off WordPress as it has some very interesting plug-ins that may get the job done for you.
The following site has a very good article on how to use WordPress to build a criagslist type directory site: How to Build a Wordpress Craigslist
Personal Experience
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
Here's part two! Ask me any question! Question continuation