Use PHP Product Finder on a CD

[spenland]

Hi guys, I've gotten an interesting request from my supervisor. We have a dynamic product finder on our website that uses a MySQL database to display a list of products depending on what category you select. Is is possible to use this on a CD?

The reason for this is for distributors to be able to access information while they are away from their computers. I'm guessing that its not possible since the online application needs to connect to an database but this is not my area of expertise.

Any suggestions?

[marbant]

http://www.uniformserver.com/index.php?us=plugins
is a WAMP webserver distro that also runs from usb sticks - though you'll have the problem to offline-sync recent database records to your clients

[DrTandem1]

Originally Posted by spenland

Hi guys, I've gotten an interesting request from my supervisor. We have a dynamic product finder on our website that uses a MySQL database to display a list of products depending on what category you select. Is is possible to use this on a CD?

The reason for this is for distributors to be able to access information while they are away from their computers. I'm guessing that its not possible since the online application needs to connect to an database but this is not my area of expertise.

Any suggestions?

Well, you could make it similar to a web site by using HTML and simply supply a comprehensive index that has hyperlinks to the various products.

[southplatte]

Originally Posted by spenland

Hi guys, I've gotten an interesting request from my supervisor. We have a dynamic product finder on our website that uses a MySQL database to display a list of products depending on what category you select. Is is possible to use this on a CD?

The reason for this is for distributors to be able to access information while they are away from their computers. I'm guessing that its not possible since the online application needs to connect to an database but this is not my area of expertise.

Any suggestions?

Well, I guess if they are away from their computers, maybe a cd is not the best medium anyways??

I shall make an assumption: You meant when they are not connected to the Internet?

If so, there is no way to work this, unless you make mysql dumps from your db available so they can download it, and copy it to a folder on their hard drive.....then using marbant's suggestion would work, as you would have a local copy at that point (provided you updated the web app to pull from the local database - which means you then have a replicated web site, and a replicated database)....however the customer needs to keep it updated, or you then need to provide an update service for them to notify when the product list changes in any way shape, or form.

You could code the cd to connect to your web site to get the data, but I feel that would defeat the entire purpose.

[Faglork]

Don't know if this would work:
- dump the mysql into csv
- import csv into MS ACCESS
- build an MS ACCESS application around it (you need the developer version for that AFAIK)

This way, you could even provide an update service based upon your mysql database.

faglork

[wetchman]

We've created a few CD projects but because of the nature of server-based technologies like PHP and ASP, we chose Flash. You can package everything you need on one CD, and even test for an internet connection through Flash. Then, if you have an internet connection, you can communicate to outside databases and web sites. If you don't have the connection, then just disable certain features or give the user a message.

[spenland]

Thanks for the replies guys. I figured that it wasn't really possible to do this without altering the code or connecting it to an alternative data source. Since updating the products and making them available for download would be a nightmare I think that I may just have to scrap this idea and move on.

cheers!