Readme file for My Contact Table

My Contact Table is a code generator program. It allows you to easily create a PHP/MySQL web application without writing any code. The generated application is a membership-based database.

This means that you can allow members to register (sign up) and when they log in, they can add new records, view, search, edit and delete the records they have entered before. They can also upload related files for each record. In addition, users can choose to mark some of the records they entered as "shared". Shared records can be viewed by other members (but can be edited only by their owners).

"Admin" members can view and manage members. In addition, they can also view and manage all members records.

My Contact Table can be used for a variety of applications where you wish to store records into a web database. Perhaps you want a file upload area on your site or simply only need to create a members area for an existing database or another area of your site where you wish to control member access. The generated code can be modified in any text editor to fit your specific requirements.

To get started with what My Contact Table can do, open it from your Windows Start menu->MyContactTable->MyContactTable. The program starts with a pre-set contacts list example project. You'll see a list of the fields included in the table that you can easily modify, add or delete fields to fit your own project requirements. You have full control defining the fields for the table.

After customizing the fields, you may wish to have a look on the text of each page of your web project. Just click on buttons to the left, like "Homepage", "Members login", .. etc. You can easily change the text that appears on these pages through our powerful HTML editor.

When done, just click on the "Generate pages" button, select the output folder, and voila! You'll see a list of all generated files. Now, open the Project menu and click on "Browse files" to view the generated files. You have just created your first web application! It took less than 5 minutes. And you haven't written a single line of code!

Use your favorite FTP program to upload the generated files to your web server. If you don't have an FTP program, you can download one from here. There are many available, and some of them are freeware.

Please take care while uploading to retain the folder structure of the generated application. After uploading, use your FTP program to set the permissions of the main folder of the uploaded files to readable/writable by all (chmod 777). This is important for the install process to be successful.

Now that files are uploaded, open your web browser and type this url in the address bar:

http://yourdomain.com/path/to/application/install.php

Replace the parts in red above with actual domain and path on your server. For example, if your server name is bluesky.com and you uploaded the files inside a folder named members, then the url should be: http://bluesky.com/members/install.php

You will need to know the host name or MySQL server name for your MySQL database in most cases it will be localhost but not always. Check with your web host or admin. You will also be required to enter the MySQL server name, username, password and the database name that you will be using. You will need to have a database created with your web host prior to running the install. Just follow the instructions during the install and your application will be ready for use.

How to navigate the generated web application:

(a) http://yourdomain.com/path/to/application/install.php (configures the MySQL table and scripts)(you can delete install.php, makesql.php & sql.sql from your server after installation)

(b )http://yourdomain.com/path/to/application/admin/login.php (admin login)

(c) http://yourdomain.com/path/to/application/register.php (register new members)

(d) http://yourdomain.com/path/to/application/login.php (members login to manage records)

(e) http://yourdomain.com/path/to/application/index.html (sample homepage with all links - main navigation)