Question

[gamary]

Hi guys,

I have a project of a new website which would mostly be a photo collection but I don't know exactly what would be required to create it. Basically, it would be a bit like airliners.net, with visitors able to:

*search by type, operator, date, location, unit, etc...
*upload pictures
*make comments/corrections

My computer skills are limited and I suppose I need to learn PHP in order to create such a website, which would be more complex and large than what I've done to date.

Can those of you who have some experience in such fields give me a bit of advice? It would be very appreciated! Thanks in advance!

[Serval]

You could buy gallery software. That is what most people do.
There are many galleries for sale with various prices. Mostly you need a server that supports PHP and MySQL.
Start with writing down what functions it should have. Especially tagging and searching would be important I guess, so figure how you want that.
What makes airlines unique (like il2skins.com was) are the various ways of looking up aircraft it has. And it might be unlikely that standard software offers that.
So, you might want to start with a basic program and then add features yourself. Though that also gives loads of work with every upgrade you have.

[gamary]

Thanks for the response, Serval. Indeed, searching would be very important, and therefore tagging too. I've begun looking into php/mysql programming, but haven't gone very far yet as I'm having difficulties with my server, which doesn't seem to want to accept php pages for the moment.

[Serval]

If you program something yourself, try and find some books on security.
It isn't too hard to write a login, but it is hard to prevent all kinds of exploits. Beside that you need to stay up to date about what the latest discovered PHP MySQL exploits are to fix them.

[gamary]

That's what I was afraid of. Maybe the simplest thing for me would be to try and find somebody who could code it, while I do the graphics and "maintenance" of the site? I'm pretty sure the project has potential, but I'm a bit overwhelmed I must say.

My experience up to now is only with very simple, static websites, and this would clearly be different.

[Serval]

Yes, or find a gallery that has most features and where it is possible to (let someone) add the rest you need.
With this option you also have future updates. Only problem is that you have to do the custom changes to every upgrade. Often that will be simple compare and copy work, but with some changes you'll need to make the custom options cmpatible with the new version of the gallery.