PHP/MySQL Driven website

Design help Custom code
1

Hi,

Let me share some info on how i worked in the past and how i’d like to work now. If you have alternatives for how i would like to work now, that have the same results, i’ll be happy to hear about that too!

About 17 years ago, i made some websites using php and mysql. Most of what i made was used on lan-parties for competition management where admins set up the tournaments, teams register, matches were planned out and scores were kept. I went about this by executing php code that takes premade html templates and injects this with db data. I made a main layout html file with headers, nav bar, menu’s, footer, etc… but the main content is left blank, with php you inject the requested content on page load (loops & things ;)). The data in the content comes from a mysql database and the html comes from page specific html templates. i made php weave this into a coherent page using GET and POST variables to determine what to show on page load. It worked well and was satisfying because you had absolute control. Development time was um… not optimal :wink: Anyway, i grew up, lan-parties stopped being a thing and (unfortunately) so did website building.

I recently found a reason to pick up this long lost skill, for a project that will require full database access. In my search i found Webflow, a brilliantly executed wysiwyg that shaves off tremendous amounts of design time! The different view port system seems like a must have in this multi screen era. I did learn that there’s no option to directly manipulate the collections from within the website, which is unfortunate. My idea now is to use Webflow to create static pages for export, after which, I’ll manually prepare the html code as needed so it’s ready for php to bind it all into a database driven website. I hope i make sense to someone, this is probably aged thinking.

My questions are:
1, can i do this?
2, is it a good way to do it? If there’s alternatives with the same result (full db control), i’ll gladly hear about it. A quick search said something about a rest api?, some third-party addons/bridges/it’s unclear to me what they are but i don’t think that’s what i need. I can make my queries.

Thank you for reading my post!

Wannes.

PS: i read the sticky and i realize that my post lacks just about everything you ask for. No disrespect intended, I just don’t have anything to show you other then my story and my questions. The tags seem to fit tho :wink:

2

Using the code export feature, this sort of thing is possible.

We’ve done something similar to host a number of sites off one site ‘template’ I created in Webflow. I use Custom Code elements to create tags for content placement. I then dump the site export in a repo and our system runs it through our own parsing script to inject data from our DB and create all the static pages. Using this approach allows you to update the underlying template without having to do all the placement again.

Depends on the complexity of what you’re trying to create, but another solution you may wish to look at is AppDrag if you want it all in one place.

3

Thank you for confirming that it’s possible! I have taken a look at Appdrag and while it has the db control, the editor is inferior to Webflow’s. Always something it seems :).

I have decided to start a backend dev course before starting the project which introduced things like Netbeans and Symfony. There’s a whole new development world out there. I like it.

Thank you for taking the time to respond (rather quickly even)!

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