# I Need Advice on Rebuilding slipperorchids.info



## silence882 (Nov 16, 2011)

Hello,

My life has finally slowed to the point where I have some spare time, so I'm thinking about rebuilding slipperorchids.info. It is currently using HTML that I learned in high school way back in the late '90s and I would like to make the site more user friendly. For example, the paph primary hybrids page is pretty clunky:
http://slipperorchids.info/paphprimaries/index.html

I would like to replace this page with a more condensed intro page that starts with offering the visitors the choice of which groups/crosses they would like to display. I also want to be able to show the parents as they are shown now. It would be nice if I could store the primary crosses in a table of some sort and use a script to automatically display the parents based on the listed cross.

I know this is way more complex than basic HTML, but I don't know where to start in building such a page. Are there programs out there that can build the needed scripts for me or would I have to write them from scratch? Does anyone know where I can go about finding this information?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

--Stephen


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## fibre (Nov 16, 2011)

Sorry Stephen, I can't help you.

but:
slipperorchids.info is a wonderful unique project! I love it very much and I hope you can update some pages and rebuild it. Good luck!


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## jtrmd (Nov 16, 2011)

Does anyone still use Dreamweaver?


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## gonewild (Nov 16, 2011)

jtrmd said:


> Does anyone still use Dreamweaver?



yes


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## ehanes7612 (Nov 16, 2011)

dreamweaver!


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## gonewild (Nov 16, 2011)

silence882 said:


> Any help would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> --Stephen



You might consider using a combination of ZenCart and HTML pages.
ZenCart is an open source PHP shopping cart. You can set Zen Cart to be a none sales display catalog. Then you can treat each group as a product category and members of the group as sub categories, as many levels as you like. Each specie or hybrid could have multiple pictures and text description. You can also have links to HTML pages. 

You could cross link the entries so they can appear in common groups. It is also completely searchable, for example you could search "yellow" and the result would be a page with all plants that had the word yellow in the name or description.

I think this would work very well and plan to use this method for some of our future work in Peru.


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## Marc (Nov 16, 2011)

Stephen, I can't help you out with your site.
However I wasn't aware that you, the host of slipperorchids.info are a member of this forum. It's a site I'm using since picking up the orchid hobby. I would like to thank you for it and hope that you will keep it up untill the end of the internet. 

Thank you!


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## paphioboy (Nov 16, 2011)

Thanks very much for setting up that site.  i can contribute pics of some primary hybrids, if you would like them..


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## SlipperFan (Nov 16, 2011)

I love your site, Stephen. I use it, along with phragweb, for most of my slipper needs.

There is a program called "Flux" you might want to look at. I'm trying to learn it right now: http://www.theescapers.com/flux/


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## eggshells (Nov 17, 2011)

Hi Stephen. I think the best way to approach this is to just use a CMS. A Content Management System such as Joomla. If you need any modules such as calendars or picture viewers or other things. You can just download a module or extension more often free of use.

I would also like to add that its free of use because its an opensource. If you need any questions or help. I would be happy to help you.


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## Paphman910 (Nov 17, 2011)

eggshells said:


> Hi Stephen. I think the best way to approach this is to just use a CMS. A Content Management System such as Joomla. If you need any modules such as calendars or picture viewers or other things. You can just download a module or extension more often free of use.
> 
> I would also like to add that its free of use because its an opensource. If you need any questions or help. I would be happy to help you.



Open Source is Great!

Paphman910


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## Candace (Nov 17, 2011)

I use an outdated of Adobe GoLive to manage and create my sites. Adobe has some great web building software. It's expensive and you'd have to learn it, though...


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## SlipperFan (Nov 17, 2011)

Candace said:


> I use an outdated of Adobe GoLive to manage and create my sites. Adobe has some great web building software. It's expensive and you'd have to learn it, though...



Me too, Candace. I don' like Dreamweaver. DW is convoluted, and GoLive is simple. But nobody supports it anymore. Sigh.


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## cnycharles (Nov 18, 2011)

I use a version of golive on my mac (5 or 6) and if I upgrade to the next version, I would have to change all of the webpages on the club site to use their new format. I bought it on ebay, but there is no point for me to upgrade if it will just make me have to change everything. When I first started helping on the club website, the web person was 'fussy' I thought because when I would do an update and put it up, he wouldn't be happy... it turned out that he was using golive and when I made an update with netscape gold or whatever, it 'changed' the format of the page since golive used some of their own things here and there, so he would have to download a page, edit it in golive and then upload it again. Until I got a copy of the same program I had to send him a copy of what I had edited so that he could see if it needed 'adjusting'. So if more than one person would be fixing/making pages that are designed with golive, then all would need a copy of the program or one person do all the editing. kind of a pain!


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## silence882 (Nov 18, 2011)

Hello all,

Thanks for all the suggestions! I think I will start experimenting with Joomla and the other open source stuff and see how that does. If I just can't get it to do what I want, then maybe I'll get myself a copy of dreamweaver. Either way, I think I have a decent amount of work ahead of me to properly rebuild the site...



paphioboy said:


> Thanks very much for setting up that site.  i can contribute pics of some primary hybrids, if you would like them..



As always, if you have any pics of any slippers (species & hybrids) you'd be willing to let me post, please e-mail them to me at: [email protected].

Thanks!

--Stephen


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## Heather (Nov 18, 2011)

Stephen!!!!

I'm so glad you are BACK! You have been missed - I have been often wondering what happened to you whenever I go through the member list or use your site. 

SO Happy to see you here again! Next time you feel like disappearing, let us know will you please? We've lost a few members (whom I'm actually afraid have passed away) and I worry about things like that!


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## silence882 (Nov 20, 2011)

Heather said:


> Stephen!!!!
> 
> I'm so glad you are BACK! You have been missed - I have been often wondering what happened to you whenever I go through the member list or use your site.
> 
> SO Happy to see you here again! Next time you feel like disappearing, let us know will you please? We've lost a few members (whom I'm actually afraid have passed away) and I worry about things like that!



Hi Heather!

I decided to take an extended break from orchids, as school/work/moving was taking up every last bit of my time. Luckily I'm done with school, have settled into my job, and am at my new place. So it's time to take orchids back up!

--Stephen


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