PHP - Database/credit System?

hello everyone,
I am about to start coding my pages to display results from a database but before i do i want to know information about the following :

Is it best to upload images to a database?and display them accordingly? or is it best to use images from a directory? What is most commonly used and or more reliable?

Another topic i have trouble finding information on is actually positioning the output from you mysql database, is this practice done with tables?fields and rows? What is this method called? And is there more then one way to go about controlling result layout on your page?

Sorry about the 1001 questions , but i am unable to find a clear answer on the topic ..especially question two .
Thanks in advance.

Hello,

I am making a small CMS and I having some trouble with making a dynamic menu. I am wondering for a few days how I should make this menu system. I have the follow MySQL table:
 
Code: [Select]
CREATE TABLE `pages` (
  `id` int(4) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `time` varchar(10) DEFAULT NULL,
  `lastby` varchar(2) DEFAULT NULL,
  `order_id` varchar(2) DEFAULT NULL,
  `text` text,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB;
Now I would like to have a menu system as following that I make menu's in a menu table with a name and a menu ID and that I could place those pages as parent or as subparent.

How could I manage to turn my theory into reality?

I have a database table of plants, one of chemicals, one of products, one of illnesses. Each table is connected, for example lets say opium poppies. They contain the chemical morphine. Morphine is used in painkiller products. Its used to treat pain and other illnesses. On the opium poppy page, I want to list all the chemicals found in the poppy. All the products (i.e. opium, laudanum) made from the poppy. All the illnesses which are treated with the poppy. Users need to be able to edit this page, and enter chemicals, products or illnesses that are related to this plant. They also need to be able to edit the info on the page.   Making database relations is a pain in the ass with CakePHP. I don't want to waste any more time so I'm thinking maybe making it as a wordpress plugin is the way to go.  How would you go about this? Is there an easier way than wordpress, like a better CMS, or framework? If I use wordpress, should I do all the DB interactions with AJAX to avoid having to interact with the DB through wordpress (this gave me massive trouble in the past since I had my data in an external db)?

I've played around with CakePHP, then XCrud (a decent CRUD application) but I gave up on both of them, XCrud was great for everything up until it came to managing complicated relational database tables. Anyhow, I'm using wordpress a lot now cuz it lets me stop reinventing the wheel so much and although I was able to integrate XCrud into WordPress as a plugin, I think the best way to go is just transfer my database tables to WordPress tables and display them as custom post types. My time is really limited right now though, is there a plugin/set of plugins I can use to automate the process? To show you what I mean, heres the XCrud list display of one of the tables:   thats great because it automatically sets up the CRUD thing and lets you add and edit fields to the table, and doesn't heavily box you into their system but I have a table of plants, one for products, one for pharmacology, one for categories which are all related to each other, and some of them are structured in a tree/nested hierarchy structure so long story short, I need to do advanced searches based on these relations and handle these tree structured tables and CakePHP didn't work out, and XCrud has crappy documentation and isn't popular enough to find good info.   So how would you go about transfering this system to WordPress? I'm guessing I need to make custom post types for each table but what I don't yet know is how to transfer the DB tables to WordPress format, how to handle the relationships between each table and how to handle the hierarchical tree structures.

So I have to add data into my database for Olympic records for a school project. I have the sql statements and everything, but it will only enter the athlete's name and country into the table. My code is Code: [Select]
<html>
<head>
<title> CSS </title>
 <style type="text/css">
p {font-family:arial; font-size:10pt;}
body {margin: 0; padding: 0; text-align: center;}
a:link {text-decoration: none}
a:visited {text-decoration: overline; color:purple;}
a:active {text-decoration: underline;}
a:hover {text-decoration: line-through ; color:pink}
input:hover {background: aqua; color:black}
input:active { background: lime ; color: black; }
input:focus { background: yellow; color: black; }
.button {border: 1px dotted ; background:red; padding: 2px;}
.button:hover {border: 2px dotted;background: url('submitbackground.jpg') no-repeat top left; }

#main {margin: 0 auto; text-align: left; width: 800px;}
#nav  {clear: both; border: 1px solid; background-color:lightgreen; padding: 10px; width:auto; height: 8%;}
#div1 {border: 1px solid; background-color:lightblue; padding: 10px; float: left; width:20%; height:92%;}
#div2 {border: 1px solid; background-image: url('monkey.jpg'); background-repeat:no-repeat;
background-position:center bottom ; padding: 10px; float:left; width:74.5%; height:92%;}

</style>

</head>


<body>
<?php

session_start () ;
print_r ($_REQUEST) ;

if ($_SESSION['admin'] == 2) {
echo " sorry" ;
} else {

echo $_SESSION['admin']; 
if(isset($_POST['athname'])){
$athname= $_POST['athname'] ;
}

if(isset($_POST['country'])){
$country = $_POST['country'];
}

if(isset($_POST['medal'])){
$medal= $_POST ['medal'];
}

if(isset($_POST['venueyear'])){
$venueyear= $_POST ['venueyear'];
}
 if(isset($_POST['venuecity'])){
$venuecity= $_POST ['venuecity'];
}  
if(isset($_POST['venuecountry'])){
$venuecountry= $_POST ['venuecountry'];
}
if(isset($_POST['event'])){
$event= $_POST ['event'];
}
if(isset($_POST['gender'])){
$gender= $_POST ['gender'];
}



echo "<div id='main'> " ;

echo"<div id='nav'>";

echo"</div>" ;



echo "<div id='div1'>" ;
echo "<a href='index.php'>home</a><br/>" ;
echo "<a href='search.php'>Search</a><br/>" ;
echo "<a href='add-data.php'>Add Data</a><br/>" ;
echo "<a href='DeleteData.php'>Delete Data</a>" ;
echo "</div>" ;

echo"<div id='div2'>" ;


if (isset($_POST['search'])) {

$connection = odbc_connect('Olympics', '', '');
 
 
 if (!$connection)
{exit("Conection Failed: " . $connection);}

$enrID = null ;


if ( $event == '100 meters' and $gender == 'M') {
$enrID = 1 ;
echo "$enrID" ;
}elseif ($event == '200 meters' and $gender == 'M') {
$enrID = 2 ;
echo "$enrID" ;
}elseif ($event == '400 meters'and $gender == 'M') {
$enrID = 3 ;
}elseif ($event == '800 meters' and $gender == 'M') {
$enrID = 4 ;
}elseif ($event == '1500 meters' and $gender == 'M') {
$enrID = 5 ;
}elseif ($event == 'Long Jump' and $gender == 'M') {
$enrID = 6 ;
}elseif ($event == 'High Jump' and $gender == 'M') {
$enrID = 7 ;
}elseif ($event == 'Shot put' and $gender == 'M') {
$enrID = 8 ;
}elseif ($event == 'basketball' and $gender == 'M') {
$enrID = 13 ;
}elseif ($event == 'rowing' and $gender == 'M') {
$enrID = 14 ;
}elseif ($event == 'volleyball(indoor)' and $gender == 'M') {
$enrID = 15 ;
}elseif ($event == 'volleyball(beach)' and $gender == 'M') {
$enrID = 16 ;
}elseif ($event == '100 meters' and $gender == 'F') {
$enrID = 17 ;
}elseif ($event == '200 meters' and $gender == 'F') {
$enrID = 18 ;
}elseif ($event == '400 meters'and $gender == 'F') {
$enrID = 19 ;
}elseif ($event == '800 meters' and $gender == 'F') {
$enrID = 20 ;
}elseif ($event == '1500 meters' and $gender == 'F') {
$enrID = 21 ;
}elseif ($event == 'Long Jump' and $gender == 'F') {
$enrID = 22 ;
}elseif ($event == 'High Jump' and $gender == 'F') {
$enrID = 23 ;
}elseif ($event == 'Shot put' and $gender == 'F') {
$enrID = 24 ;
}elseif ($event == 'basketball' and $gender == 'F') {
$enrID = 25 ;
}elseif ($event == 'rowing' and $gender == 'F') {
$enrID =26 ;
}elseif ($event == 'volleyball(indoor)' and $gender == 'F') {
$enrID = 27 ;
}elseif ($event == 'volleyball(beach)' and $gender == 'F') {
$enrID = 28 ;
}

$EnrVenID = null ;


if ($venueyear == '1984') {
$EnrVenID = 1 ;
echo "$EnrVenID" ;
}elseif ($venueyear == '1988') {
$EnrVenID = 2 ;
}elseif ($venueyear == '1992') {
$EnrVenID = 3 ;
}elseif ($venueyear == '1996') {
$EnrVenID = 4 ;
}elseif ($venueyear == '2000') {
$EnrVenID = 5 ;
}elseif ($venueyear == '2004') {
$EnrVenID = 6 ;
}elseif ($venueyear == '2008') {
$EnrVenID = 7 ;
echo "$EnrVenID" ;
}elseif ($venueyear == '2012') {
$EnrVenID = 8 ;
echo "$EnrVenID" ;
}

$sql="INSERT INTO Athletes (Athname, Athcountry) values ( '$athname', '$country') " ;
$rs=odbc_exec($connection,$sql); 


$sql4="INSERT INTO Enrollments (EnrMedal, EnrYear, EnrEventID, EnrVenID) values ( '$medal', '$venueyear', '$enrID', '$EnrVenID') " ;
$rs4=odbc_exec($connection,$sql4); 
}
echo "<form method='post' action=''>\n";

echo"Please fill out all the fields with the data that you wish to be added: <br/>";

echo"Athelete Name:<input type ='text' Name='athname' > <br/> \n"  ; 

echo"Athelete Country:<input type ='text' Name='country' > <br/> \n"  ; 

echo "Medal: <select name='medal' value='medal'>\n";
echo "<option > </option>\n";
echo "<option $Gold> Gold </option>\n";
echo "<option $Silver> Silver </option>\n";
echo "<option $Bronze'> Bronze</option>\n";
echo "</select>\n" ;

echo "Venue Year: <select name='venueyear' value= 'venueyear'>\n";
echo "<option ></option>\n";
echo "<option $1984> 1984 </option>\n";
echo "<option $1988> 1988 </option>\n";
echo "<option $1992>1992 </option>\n";
echo "<option $1996> 1996 </option>\n";
echo "<option $2000> 2000 </option>\n";
echo "<option $2004> 2004 </option>\n";
echo "<option $2008> 2008 </option>\n";
echo "<option $2012> 2012</option>\n";
echo "</select>\n" ;

echo "Venue City: <select name='venuecity' value= 'venuecity'>\n";
echo "<option > </option>\n";
echo "<option $LA> Los Angeles </option>\n";
echo "<option $Seoul> Seoul </option>\n";
echo "<option $Barca> Barcelona </option>\n";
echo "<option $ATL> Atlanta</option>\n";
echo "<option $Syd> Sydney </option>\n";
echo "<option $Ath> Athens</option>\n";
echo "<option $Beij> Beijing </option>\n";
echo "<option $Lon> London</option>\n";
echo "</select>\n" ;

echo "Venue City: <select name='venuecountry' value= 'venuecountry'>\n";
echo "<option > </option>\n";
echo "<option $USA> U.S.A. </option>\n";
echo "<option $SK> South Korea </option>\n";
echo "<option $Spain> Spain </option>\n";
echo "<option $Aus> Australia </option>\n";
echo "<option $Greece> Greece</option>\n";
echo "<option $Chin> China </option>\n";
echo "<option $UK> United Kingdom</option>\n";
echo "</select>\n" ;

echo "Event: <select name='event' value='event>\n";
echo  "<option value=''> </option>\n";
echo "<option > </option>\n";
echo "<option $100m> 100 meters</option>\n";
echo "<option $200m> 200 meters </option>\n";
echo "<option $400m>400 meters </option>\n";
echo "<option $800m> 800 meters </option>\n";
echo "<option $1500m> 1500 meters </option>\n";
echo "<option $LongJump> Long Jump</option>\n";
echo "<option $HighJump> High Jumo </option>\n";
echo "<option $Shotput> Shot put </option>\n";
echo "<option $Basketball> Basketball </option>\n";
echo "<option $Rowing> Rowing </option>\n";
echo "<option $Volleyball> Indoor Volleyball </option>\n";
echo "<option $Volley> Beach Volleyball</option>\n";
echo "</select>\n" ;

echo "Gender: <select name='gender'>\n";
echo  "<option value=''> </option>\n";
echo "<option $Male>M</option>\n";
echo "<option $Female>F</option>\n";
echo "</select>\n" ;


echo "<input type='submit' name='search' value='Search'  />\n";
echo "</form>\n"; 

echo "</div>" ;


}
?>
</body>

</html>
I have the really long IF statements in there so that it enters the correct EnrID and EnrVenID into the database, to make sure it fills out all fields. I am using Microsoft access for my database.

The problem is that it will only fill in the athlete's name and country, and not his/her enrollment information (what medal they got, their enr ID, what year it was taken place, etc.




The problem with my login system is that I want the user to login with a username and password if they wish to be an admin, but the login system doesn't work. the variables aren't passed through the system for some reason, even though it worked a week ago,  but now it doesn't.
The code is Code: [Select]
if(isset($_POST['username'])){
$username= $_POST['username'] ;
}
if(isset($_POST['password'])){
$password= $_POST['password'] ;
}

$username = null ;
$password = null ;
Thanks for any help