Dreamland time - I have an idea for a basic directory

Dev Zone Web Development
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Hello all,

Sorry to bother you, but I’ve got a cunning plan…that might be doomed! :slight_smile:

I’m gently playing with the concept of having a directory type website. I didn’t want to bodge it and use wordpress, so I thought I would use Prestashop as I’m a bit familiar with it - but instead of products I would have people and companies.

Do you think Prestashop is a good solution, or a terrible one?

It’s just a personal project really, that I was going to share with clients in case it’s helpful. I didn’t want to build it from the ground up as it’s just a side hobby.

So far I’m thinking of using categories as geographic locations. Then attributes and features would refer to abilities, such as data recovery, apple servicing, network installation and so on. These are places that I’ve personally used.

All comments welcome!

Chris

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I’d say you should probably start with a whiteboard and see what kind of features you need and go from there.

You could be happy with simple JSON files searchable trough some simple PHP backend and presented on a simple HTML page, or you may need a full featured typo tolerant search engine, location services, route planning…

Maybe even GitHub pages to run an open source directory? How awesome would that be?

Or an excel file.

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:rofl:

Thank you for that, you’re right I should do a whiteboard assessment - I quite like using diagrams.net these days.

I know PHP but no knowledge of JSON, I’ll look into this, thank you :+1:

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You can basically use built in functions to go between JSON and PHP arrays and/or objects, json_encode() and json_decode() IIRC.

But I’m more like a hobby dabbler than real programmer, so take it with a pinch of salt.

Hey, maybe even markdown and front matter for more flexibility?!

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Thank you for that, it sounds like an awful lot of learning would be needed, but I might give it a crack!