On Oct 15, 2011, at 8:57 PM, Stephen wrote:

> I am building a site for my photography.
> 
> The photographs are displayed by category.
> 
> The category table has a field for "order"
> 
> In my control panel I want to be able to change the order of the categories 
> by changing the values in the category field.
> 
> I can dynamically build a form of all categories and have a field for new 
> order number,  Then loop through the POST and update the values.
> 
> The field is not unique, so I am not worried about DB errors.
> 
> But I wonder if there is a better way.
> 
> Thoughts please?
> 
> Thank you
> Stephen
> 

Stephen:

What you describe is a multistep problem. There are many ways to show pictures 
(images) in any order you want.

I commonly store images in a database with their associated data, such as id, 
image name, size, type, category, and other such data.

Then when I want to display any image(s), I simply pull the images from the 
database in the order and/or category as I want them displayed. If I want to 
sort them in some fashion, I can use any field by using a MySQL query string, 
such as "SELECT * FROM image_db WHERE what=whatfield ASC ORDER BY whatever".

From there it's a simple process to display the data obtained from the database 
by using a pagination scheme of some type, like this:

http://php1.net/b/pagination-images/

or this:

http://webbytedd.com/bbb/paging/

In some instances, I even have a content management system where I can set the 
order of the pictures I want to appear in what order by assigning them a sort 
order number/category.

For example, if I have 20 pictures (numbers 1-20) each having a sort number, 
they will be shown in that order. If I want to change the order of the 
presentation, such as insert image 16 into position 3, I simply change the 
order number of picture 16 to 2.5 and resort the categories on integer. Bingo, 
the images are resorted as I want.

There are many ways to do this -- you just need to define what you specifically 
want to do and break it down into manageable parts.

Cheers,

tedd

_____________________
t...@sperling.com
http://sperling.com


--
PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/)
To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php

Reply via email to