Learning PHP

If someone, such as myself with little to no experience coding wanted to learn PHP or HTML for that matter, where would be a good place to start. Ive googled theres a ton of sites to choose from.... just curious as to where you started.

Thanks K

If you plan to learn so that you can mess around with scripts like Dolphin, you'll need to develop a lot of knowledge before it will help you. I learned the pascal-like programming language of dBase II in the 80's and actually taught it. I then transferred to a 4th Generation language called Clarion, but as new versions came out it became progressively harder to keep up with because of my limited time. I eventually learned the basics of PHP when it was version 2, but know very little of the workings of PHP today.

Although I was advanced enough to write my own Point of Sale system which I used for 10 years, plus a database driven web site with over 2,500 pages, I can barely solve any coding problems with Dolphin. Any routine uses so many functions and arrays, calls on so many other files and even other languages such as java.

So it comes down to your reason for wanting to learn, the amount of time you have available and how experienced you wish to become.

HTML is a little easier to master, but the basic stuff just paints stuff on the screen. It has been almost replaced with CSS and a knowledge of that can be very helpful to a Dolphin user.

If you must proceed, the best way to learn is have someone teach you. That way you can home in on specific questions or tasks that will be beneficial to you immediately. If you can't find someone, borrow a beginner's guide from your local library. Computer books are expensive and they're usually outdated before you reach the last page.

Thanks so much Demmy for your reply.

I guess my reason to learn is so that i understand a little more of what I'm doing as I develop my site. Ideally to be able to modify and update to save a little money would be nice too.... Also I'm sure Nathan would appreciate a few less "oh sh**" help messages at 2 am.

Right now I open files with no clue what the code means or does,  i copy paste,  delete ....swear a bit in between  reinstall the original file.... repeat a few more times and voila  suddenly it does something... sometimes what i was hoping for but most times not...  

K

If you're only talking Dolphin . . .

The script consists of four main items:

The Core: Written in all sorts of strange languages including PHP, Java XML and to a lessor degree, HTML. You should never play with the core, because one word out of place can break the script.

Modules: These enhance your site and there's probably a module out there to do what you want.

Templates. That's what your members see. Although Dolphin doesn't have a swag of templates, you can easily theme a template like Evo template to suit your style using . . .

CSS: Getting on top of this will give you the best chance of making your site unique.

It will take you a month of Sundays to work out how the core operates and it really ain't worth the trouble. My site is heavily modified and I've never touched the core. I've just made changes to the CSS in the modules and templates.

CSS is found in the Modules and template folders under the individual module/template name.

/templates/tmpl_evo/css. The most common ones are "common" and "General", but an item can be shared between two or more.

Every item viewed on the screen is generated by CSS in one template or another. Thus, all you need do is change the CSS to suit your needs. You can learn how to do simple changes in a day or two and progressively gain additional skills as you learn.

I'll show you how in my next post, but in the meantime, maybe you can tell us the kind of things you wish to change. There's usually someone here who can help you.

Now you have opened a can of worms.... lol! you may wish you never offered to help.

ill try to keep it to a couple items. hahaha!

Im happy with my template... I'm using Evo however have modified it using the profile customizer. 

The standard email notifications however need to be customized to match my look... I have yet  to figure out how thats done... 

Ive added a vertical menu to the html blocks (see attached screen shot) I'm wondering if there is a way to make updates to one and have the changes filter to all the menus get updated vs having to manually make the changes to each block on each page. (I'm guessing this might be a custom job I need to have done or maybe the cheapest and easiest solution would be for me to stop changing my mind every few days)

Also wondering how to make each menu item change colour upon hover.

lastly what script is changed to make changes to the icons..... i know most can be done through the menu builder, but the icons i want to change are not (see attached pic)

Thanks for your help... think we got a little off topic on this thread.... 

You've done exceptionally well so far.

I just threw this tutorial together because a lot of people don't know where to start. It's not necessarily specific to you, but hovering over an screen element such as a button will help you to identify the hover code.

Hope it helps and if you already know this, someone else who reads this thread may not.

Regarding emails, please keep in mind that many people are fed up to their ears with emails and are often offended with fancy emails that miss the point (aka Incredimail). I strongly suggest that you give the client what they want and not necessarily what you want.

Thanks so much... I'm using a mac book pro ... is the develop show page source the same as your inspect elements?

 i  totally agree but just want to change it from the grey to a white clean look  with my logo similar to my site so nothing fancy.

1. Show Page Source is the generated code for the page. I found it helpful in the old days when it was all HTML tables, but a bit useless more recently.  Firefox, Chrome, IE all call the feature I've demonstrated "Inspect Element".  I have no idea about the Mac.


2. You change the emails through Admin/Settings/Email Templates. You need to change the code in the body section. To do it properly you need a very simple HTML editor.  However, if have a lot of emails to change and you you don't mind paying, Anton has a module "Advanced Email templates for $40 and there are probably others. Anton is a Dolphin coder and his work is fantastic. Plus his after sales service is impeccable.

https://www.boonex.com/m/advanced-email-templates

If you're using Safari, try this:

wonderful thanks so much... ill check it out in the morning... its 4:25 here so i think its time to head to bed. 

You could look for classes at a college but of course they would be on a schedule that you would have to be able to keep.  There may be online classes from a college where the time would be very flexible.  There are also many tutorial sites that you can work through.  There are even sites where you pay a fee and work through a class like environment.

You can download a LAMP environment to your local machine and use it for development work.  If you know nothing about scripting languages and nothing about PHP, then you would start with the basics.  Small steps will lead to bigger steps to running at full steam.

http://www.w3schools.com is a good place to learn about HTML, PHP, CSS, etc.  They have real time examples and quizzes.

Thanks for the link geek_girl 

I'd start with free courses and if they don't satisfy your hunger for PHP knowledge then look at reasonably priced paid courses.  Check udemy ... https://www.udemy.com/courses/search/?q=PHP&src=ukw&lang=en&price=price-free&instructionalLevel=beginner

... learning is fun when you want to :-)

Thanks epaulo

love your quote "... learning is fun when you want to "

how true..... just wish i could get my brain to shut down long enough to get a good nights sleep

Welcome to the world of Dolphin.

 paulo thank-you, thank-you, thank-you i followed your link and started with the introduction to html

i finally know what <ol> means .....apparently its not a slang for lol 

video learning is so much nicer than reading books. mind you i might fall asleep faster if i were to read vs watch a video.

anyhow thanks so much... this is just what i was looking for.

http://www.w3schools.com - provides great info as well as examples. I started with Dolphin with very little experience with php, javascript or simple html. Most of the code related questions I have had I have found a usable example on this site. I did not look into learning more php and html and such - but instead looked at Dolphin itself - specifically the MyFirstModule tutorial - which really made it a lot easier to understand the way dolphin is setup and how the code is written.

 I didn't know there was a MyFirstModule tutorial...

Ill go search and check it out. thanks

The Professor made a very valid point; it is  not just knowing php code; you need to study the Dolphin libraries and classes so you gain an understanding of how Dolphin works, such things as the alert system and the Service calls.  Work though the module tutorial as it will outline a lot of things.