I've been working on the first DRAFT of a reference website for collectibles-related-to-that-show-some-of-us-watch. The longer I struggle with it, structurally, the more I think it needs to be database-driven. But if I wait to post it until I know enough about MySQL and PHP and CSS to run it that way, it's going to be at least a year before anyone sees it, and I'd kind of like it out there, in Some form, sooner than that.
If anyone has any suggestions re: structuring the initial flat files and directories, I'd love to hear them. The areas where I'm really struggling are (a) efficiently managing entries for items which fall into more than one logical category, (b) cataloging disparate items whose descriptive requirements have little in common with each other, and (c) designing a reasonable system for assigning catalog numbers to items in the collection.
Posted by thinkum at March 6, 2004 05:53 PMa) Hypertext makes setting up links from multiple categories easy. You keep one entry for the item itself, but have multiple links to the item from categories. Also, to help searching on your site, just put in the right metatext entries.
b) Again, hypertext helps a lot here. Just have a basic description block.
c) This, I don't have much help for. Pick something large -- I favor 6-dash-3 digits, with the final three reserved for revisions -- but that's a habit left over from a previous professional life.
Posted by: PyeCat at March 9, 2004 02:46 AMI know how to create crosslinked files and directories - what I'm struggling with is the organization of the files on the server, rather than the presentation in a web browser. We're talking about more individual files than is practical to manage in a single directory, so I need some logical method of breaking them into subdirectories for storage.
The basic description block really isn't going to work for me, either - I have disparate "flavors" of descriptive attributes, with multiple items in each flavor group; I want to offer more specific fields, so that at some future point I can allow searches by, say, manufacturer, issue date, publisher, license status, catalog number, etc.
Re: catalog numbers, yeah, it probably is going to come down to a straight numeric serial number. I was looking for some system that would include a visual cue, but meaningful numbering systems do always seem to break down over time.
Posted by: Thinky at March 9, 2004 05:36 PM