Re: [Lcd4linux-devel] manpage for lcd4linux

[Xavier V. <xav...@fr...>]

Hi Michael, hi list !
> 
> >>My personal opinion is to leave it in html for the time being.  How would
> >>you feel about modifying the web page to not use frames, and perhaps use
> >>CSS?
> > I became quite good with CSS and folks. A first step would be to use
> > CSS. But I think php may be a good thing. It's up to the team to decide
> 
> Ok, as a decision basis, could someone please explain PHP to me?
I'll try :

> - what does PHP mean? (as you can see from this question, I really dont 
> know anything about it :-)
For the PHP manual (php-doc package if I remember well) :
PHP (recursive acronym for "PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor") is a
widely-used Open Source general-purpose scripting language that is
especially suited for Web development and can be embedded into HTML. 

> - what is it for?
In short, it can process pages dynamically, to make the site maintainer
 work less and the server make the work ;) You include code within HTML
 code, just between <? and ?> marks.

> - what are the benefits? (besides from being 'hip', which doesn't count 
> for me)
There are a lot :
- using databases (for example to keep a table of porting status without
rewriting HTML page, just modifying the sql table) (another example :
news on front page).
- dynamic generation of pages
- easy include system : for zwe, the concept is simple : the new page
includes a php include, has the article in XHTML and call function to
insert headers, menus, images, code frames, links, ...
The advantage of this, it for example that you can modify you menu or
add 'general' links easilly without rewriting all the pages of using
"deprecated" frames.
- cool things : display a little box with last version, web-interface
news system, ...

> - what are the drawbacks?
Just one, it's one more language to learn ! But it's the same base
syntax as C and Perl, so no high learning price.
Another drawback was that at the beginning php wasn't supported by all
hosters, but now it's supported everywhere :)

>  From my side, I have two opinions: basically I don't care wheter the 
> website is made of HTML, Flash, Java, PHP, Perl, VisualBasic (ok, remove 
> that one) as long as it looks cool, renders correct, isn't full-bloated, 
> and is up to date.
Believe me, PHP generates HTML code, so it isn't heavier than pure
  HTML. I really dislike flash and JS. The only 'overload' is on the
 server, but don't worry.

> OTOH, if I am to keep it up to date or if I should assist in maintaining 
> it, it should be bare HTML, 'cause it's the only web language I'm able 
> to read and write. I don't even know CSS (I've seen it, and I disliked 
> it, because I did not understand it :-)
In fact, you write your pages in HTML, but you include a file and call
PHP functions to help to format (and insert common tags). CSS looks
strange at first sight, but it can really produce good looking sites.

> So, change it to PHP or CSS or both if you think it's good, but PLEASE 
> do not handover the maintenance to me after a couple of weeks...
In the better dreams, once I have finished the coding, we could write
the help pages in docbook and then modify them a bit to include them in
the site. I've already designed 4 sites with zwe and derivated works,
but they are all in tuxfamily servers, which are down :/

Bye !
-- 
Xavier VELLO <xav...@fr...>