Question for the web developers out there...

Community Forums/General Help/Question for the web developers out there...

sswift(Posted 2009) [#1]
Let's say I wanted to set up a website where I have a bunch of images sorted by category. And furthermore, let's say I wanted to limit users to a certain number of images per day based on a subscription level I set.

What would be the best way of going about this? Is there some software which will auomatically generate pages based on whatever's in a directory tree I specify?

And how might I best limit people to a certain number of downloads per day? I'm thinking a cookie wouldn't be secure enough. You'd need to record their IP address locally. An account system would work too, but that would probably drive away casual users before I could convert them into paying customers.


Canardian(Posted 2009) [#2]
You should not use cookies for that. People can always delete their cookies.

CGI variables allow you to detect various information of the user's browser, like IP adress, from which site they came, what their OS is, what their browser is, etc...

I know how to do this in Lotus Domino, but it should be very similar in Apache/MySQL/PHP. I'm just starting to learn LAMP (=Linux Apache MySQL PHP).


Qube(Posted 2009) [#3]
To set image limits per user your easiest bet would be to whip up some quick PHP / MYSQL for user accounts to check against. Without some database there is no realistic way of halting abuse.

Downloads per day would also fall into the user accounts but if anyone could download then a simple PHP script linked to a MYSQL database logging IP addresses would be the next best thing. Again this is very easy to do and would not take more than an hour at the most.


Kryzon(Posted 2009) [#4]
hosting a Hentai website, are we?

PS: joking. If you are looking for website references, take a look at http://cgtextures.com/ . It uses a sort of membership type thing.


MGE(Posted 2009) [#5]
Dynamic database system using php/mysql. All doable. You would need to save images in a database and stream them to the user. That's the best way to protect/limit access.


sswift(Posted 2009) [#6]
I was really looking more for a plug-in type solution, or someone willing to do it on the cheap. I don't know php, cgi, mysql, or any of that stuff. It would take me weeks to set something like that up myself. It's only easy when you know how to do it already. :-)


maximo(Posted 2009) [#7]
I would suggest you use wordpress.org and see if there is plugin, if there is no plugin, you can pay someone to develop one for you perhaps


Sterling(Posted 2009) [#8]
Personally I'm a big fan of Drupal, its a highly customisable open source CMS with a large well supported community and plenty of plugin modules/templates etc

You should be able to find quite a few options there for paid subscriptions/e-commerce/content access control.

drupal.org


maximo(Posted 2009) [#9]
Drupal is nice and all but personally I would recomend Wordpress, it can do anything Drupal can and to me its much easier and it has big community. www.wordpress.com is run on wordpress.org do I need say more? :)


N(Posted 2009) [#10]
You should only use Drupal if you're a masochist.


D4NM4N(Posted 2009) [#11]
You should not use cookies for that.

x2! -plus the fact it makes your x number of downloads quite easy to exploit. Keep all the counting data serverside.

It would be very easy to either have a simple account system -or- if you dont want to have "accounts" simply record the client details (eg ip) in a self flushing list against the daily/weekly allowance.

As for the gallery bit, it is fairly simple to write one in PHP (i did one ages ago for my images site in about a day) but there are probably loads of free 'gallery' source about.


Zethrax(Posted 2009) [#12]
Here's some listings that came up in a search at Hotscripts ( http://www.hotscripts.com/ ). Not sure if any of them do exactly what you want. Some more searches at Hotscripts may turn up something more relevant to your needs.

http://www.hotscripts.com/listing/stock-photography-script-sell-stock-photos-with-our-credit-based-script/

http://www.hotscripts.com/listing/photo-video-store-script/

http://www.hotscripts.com/listing/caribou-cms-for-subscription-membership-web-sites/


maximo(Posted 2009) [#13]
ah yes, or swift you could go for totaly custom scripts which you can find on hotscripts as Bill mentioned above, its possible that someone already has put one together and it will work better then what drupal or wordpress can provide you with from start...


AJ00200(Posted 2009) [#14]
Have them make an account.