8ennett

Yes, very easy to upload mysql database. Just get phpmyadmin on your home server, export the database using the export tab, and usually for me it just displays all the mysql code instead of offering to save a file, so I copy the code, open phpmyadmin on my remote server, click the sql tab (for writing sql queries in to) and simply paste the copied code and run it.

I am currentlywriting a tutorial on how to create your own mmorpg and will soon be writing the section on creating in-game message boards complete with bbcode and admin/moderator features. It's not been written yet but you can find the first parts of the tutorial in these links. Part 1: Advanced User Account System Part 2: Welcome Home Part 3: Administration Part 4 is ready to be put up i just haven't gotten around to it yet but if needed i can write the message boards next.

I'll probably be writing the next tutorial in a day or two (bit hungover today) but all the code has already been done so it's just a matter of writing the article. Thanks for the pm as well.

Don't worry, all errors have been found and fixed in the next tutorial.If you want to pm me the errors you have found though I can check them against the six I found.Also I use dreamweaver mx, with an updated syntax library of course

I've always used coreftp personally, the lite version anyway (free). It's simple and fast which is always what you want.

Forgot to add the new download archive, sorry about that. Download Example3.rar

Ok I have just finished writing the next part of this tutorial so once it has been approved it will be available to all. Sorry for the long delay. 8ennett's Text-based Mmorpg: Part 3

Now before we begin this tutorial please ensure you have run through parts 1 and 2 and made sure you understand everything that has been said. Feel free to comment on each tutorial with any questions and I will help you out as best I can. Part 1: Advanced User Account System Part 2: Welcome Home Also for this tutorial you will need to download the updated files archive which contains all the new files included in this tutorial as well as all the previous files and the mysql tables document which you will need to run. As with the other tutorials once you have created your database and run the tables query you will need to change the config file located in lib/config.php. I'd also like to point out to everyone that there has been no change to the table structure in this tutorial so you don't need to overwrite your current example database if you have one. ############### Part 1: Administrative ############### So here we are, we are going to work on our new admin panel. In this tutorial we will cover the site config editor and a special button for turning our server online and offline. When we turn our server offline that means that no body can register with your site and cannot login either. Also anyone who is already logged in will be logged out, except of course admins and super admins. So what you need to do first is ensure you are registered with your site and logged in. If you haven't done so already you will also need to change your account type to "Super" so you have the master account. Change the account type in your database under the "type" column. Now you are an administrator you will notice now you can see an additional item on the home menu. This link will appear only if you are an admin or super admin and is a link to the admin panel. If you look in the home.php file and scroll through the code to the menu you can see how simple it is to do this, simply by checking the $_SESSION['user'] variable. As usual the lines are all commented to run you through how to do this. So now we are in our new admin panel you will see two buttons, Site Config and the On/Off switch for our server. I coloured the button text using the css file, have a quick look through the page code and the css file just to see how it's done. When toggling this switch the colour of the button changes from red to green and back again. If you click on the site config button then the site config settings will appear in a form below the admin panel. If you look closer at the php files you will notice the config settings editor is in a seperate php file to admin.php in the admin directory under modules. This file cannot be accessed by any other page other than our admin.php, this is because it also checks if the home include variable has been set the same as normal module pages (bank.php and home.php) so it can only be displayed if it's included in the home page, but because of the way we setup our module system they cannot access it by manipulating the $_GET variables either. If you have a look through our config.php file in the admin module directory you can see how we have processed the form data using php. Obviously since we aren't writing anything to the database then we don't need to escape the characters and so on, but we still need to do a couple of checks on each post variable. We also need to output error messages in case one of these checks fails and we can identify which field we entered an incorrect value. I have also added the TITLE tags to each form input. Now when you mouse over each field in the form it will bring up a description of what that setting is. Once all our form checks are complete and everything is ok then we re-write the config file in the lib folder with our new values. I also had it write all the original comments in case you want to change something manually in the config file and need help remembering what each setting does. So that's pretty much it for this tutorial. In future tutorials when we create new values in our config file we will also be adding them to our admin file config editor. Also we will be creating more features in the admin panel itself once we have made them elsewhere, including an in-game content editor (items, houses, weapons, animals and so on) and also a user editor. As usual any questions or comments are welcome. I won't be writing another tutorial now until the new year, although I might start one in a day or two. In the mean time keep examining the code to work out how to write your own version.

Ok I have fixed the download links for example1.rar and example2.rar so they should work now, also sorry for the long delay but i've started writing the next tutorial now and should be finished either by tonight or tomorrow (it is friday after all). Bloody NVidia board in my laptop has been really annoying lately and wouldn't even power the laptop up for a few weeks. Turns out they are in the middle of a court case to reimburse everyone who has their defective boards so can't get the money back for any repairs until january at least. Check your hardware and see if it is listed at http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/, if so you can get a replacement or reimbursed for the cost of repairs. Apparently the board messes up the integrated power supple and wireless card, which is a major pain in the ***

Hi butchoi, welcome to Xisto

I think the path variable is actually a result of vista's annoyingly complex and flawed security restrictions, obviously the first thing i did when i got this vista laptop was disable the user account control and windows defender, two of the most annoying pieces of software ever devised by microsoft. Also I think it's actually essential to disable user account control when installing php and apache anyway, at least that's what I read in all my pain staking research in to the problem. It seems microsoft are actually pushing to have their own development frameworks override any other on their operating systems which is both against the very nature of a PC and a shameful attempt at profiteering. "Oh I'm sorry, this application is not written in VB, let's corrupt a few dll's then release our own inferior version"

This has taken me the best part of two days to solve and now I've got it working I feel so relieved I think I'll share the solution for anyone online who has the same problem. After constant googling I came up with either useless solutions that state the obvious or contain responses from people who offer no help what so ever. The problem was I installed Apache 2.2.17 and PHP 5.2.14 on a x32 Vista Home SP2 HP Laptop. When I tried to start the apache server it wouldn't work. It did initially but when attempting to restart or stop and start the server it wouldn't. I even tried manually starting the apache server through the windows services app but it kept returning an Error 1067, which was no help at all, and the apache error log simply said it was PROBABLY a bad shutdown of the server previously. I eventually narrowed the problem to PHP and not apache, after a lot of tedious trial and error work I might point out. As soon as I realised this then I gave up for the night and watched some DS9. Today I ran through a lot more tedious trial and error (because yet again the error log was NO help) and eventually narrowed the problem down to the extensions. If you don't have any PHP extensions included in your php.ini file then php and apache work perfectly. I thought it might have been a particular dll however the same error occurred no matter which or how many extensions were included in the .ini file. Obviously having no extensions in php is useless if you want to use a database, use OpenSSL in your php and so on so to make the whole excercise worthwhile I had to knuckle down and work on this specific problem as fast as I possibly could without hesitation or delay...12 hours later I finally got a working solution which you need to follow exactly if you are having the same problem. Download Apache 2.0.64 Download PHP 5.2.9-2 Install apache as you normally would, then when installing PHP ensure you install EVERY sub-option. A spare copy of the php manual and also PEAR can't hurt really can it? Plus the client script is essential. Next right-click on "Computer" (either on your desktop or start menu depending on how you have vista configured), "Properties" then on the side bar "Advanced system settings" and at the bottom of the new window click "Environment Variables". Now in the lower box scroll down until you find an entry where the "variable" name is "Path", double-click on it and check the value of "Variable value" contains: C:\Program Files\PHP\ext\; If it doesn't contain that value then add it to the start of the "Variable value" value, just MAKE SURE THE REST OF THE TEXT IN THIS BOX REMAINS UNCHANGED OR YOU CAN REALLY SCREW YOUR SYSTEM. Right, now the problem should be solved. There seems to be some kind of problem with PHP 5.2.11-5.2.14 when installing it on Vista, and personally the 2.0.x version of apache is in my opinion the most stable. So I hope this solves the problem in case anyone is having similar problems, and if one single person mentions Wamp in this thread then I swear to god I will e-Punch you lol Wamp is terrible, a complete novices choice, it's both unnecessarily complicated to configure both apache and php and also doesn't enable all configuration options in either as well. What they fail to mention is that it is a stripped down version of apache, mysql, apache and phpmyadmin and serves no advanced uses what so ever. So yes, any mention of Wamp and I will hunt you down and slap you round the face with a wet kipper. And don't even get me started on Xampp lol

Right well for basic output you will definately need to learn html, if you want to make it look nice then I suggest css (although only learn this as you need it if you are short on time). Those two should take at most around 3 hours to get a good handle on and be able to create great looking websites. Next you will need to learn PHP for processing form data (forms are the textboxes, checkboxes and buttons etc. that you will need for people to login and register) and to display dynamic data such as the users name, information etc. Finally you will need to learn some basic MySQL queries. MySQL is a database which will store all your users information, such as username, password, email, register date and so on. You can store any information in the database and is a recommended essential to creating a dynamic data website. I can direct you to a good tutorial on the basics of PHP and MySQL, by far this has to be the best I have ever come across. Just start from the beginning and work your way right through, practicing the examples it gives you. Also get yourself a copy of dreamweaver for editing your php files, it's great because it acts just like frontpage (well actually a lot better) on the wysiwig side (so you might be able to get away without learning much html and css) and the colour coding for your php will really help you understand how the code is structured. PHP 101 Tutorial: https://devzone.zend.com/6/php-101-php-for-the-absolute-beginner/ The important thing to remember is that where if your website uses just html, then your main page would probably be called index.htm or something similar where as if you are using php as well as html then it will be called index.php instead. So run through the above tutorial, if you get stuck there are many php programmers on this forum who can help you with any problem, and also I recommend you setup a developers server on your home computer. The best way to do this for novices is by downloading something called WampServer. I don't like it myself, tedious and annoying for advanced users, but for the novice it's quick and simple. Just download WampServer, install it then put all your files in to C:\wamp\www (default directory) then in your web browser simply type either LOCALHOST or http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ and it will display your website. With PHP you can't normally just double-click the files to view them as with html files, instead you need to open them through your server. Anyway I'll stop going on and confusing you now lol, good luck with learning everything and don't hesitate to ask us anything.

I've put this entire project on hold for the time being while I work on my new free singles site. Once this new site has been launched then I'll be adapting the code so the site is fully configurable and can be setup using a wizard then probably market it. I'm actually very proud of the singles site I've made. It's got tonnes of features similar to facebook and other social networking sites while remaining a dating site. Anyway, I'll continue production of this game at a later date, for now I need to start generating some income otherwise I'm going to be skint.

Learning html is actually very simple. The tags are not complicated at all and very easy to pick up. You could probably learn it within 2 hours if you just sit down and get on with it. But like was mentioned earlier, html is only a markup language. The real dynamics behind html are programming languages like php, css and javascript. It is these languages which manipulate the dynamic data displayed on a html page. Just using html you couldn't create a site like facebook and also processing form data is very basic, you simply send the form data to an email address and then have to sift through it manually. If you want to become a webmaster offering content people want then it is best to get a handle on html, then learn the other languages mentioned above.

Where I come from we call it Hop-Tu-Naa (hop-choo-nay) which is a gaelic festival which actually pre-dates halloween. We also seem to be the only Celtic region which seems to celebrate it which is weird, but oh well. Hop-Tu-Naa is the celebration of Oie Houney, which is the original new years eve and means "This is the night". The children go still go around to peoples houses dressed up and sing for sweets however originally they carried turnips instead of pumpkins and didn't dress up in scary outfits. Also they sing hop-tu-naa songs. Originally they would also bring the turnip stumps with them, and if someone refused to give them money then the kids would batter the door with the turnip stumps until the person inside either goes mad and gives them money or chases them off with a hoe. I would write down the hop-tu-naa song but I doubt anyone on these forums speaks manx lol

True but at the same time it is also a very vague description. It's kind of like summing up medical training in to one sentence, "You learn to help people who are ill get better". It doesn't really give you any insight in to what medical training involves or the history of how it has evolved. Always expand upon your answer to give everyone who reads this in the future a further insight in to the subject at hand.

Personally my favourite editor has to be Dreamweaver. The WYSIWIG side makes it very easy to create clean and well formatted html code, where as the coding side offers great flexibility. For all beginners to html it is highly suggested you use dreamweaver. Possibly one of the best editors out there, especially for me and my php.

Another prime example of how computers have evolved in connectivity would be to look at the old dial-up modems. I don't mean the ones that dialled up your ISP and that is how you got online, instead I mean when you literally had to dial another computer. You would type in the phone number of your target computer and then it would dial, and the target computer on the other end would answer the call and create a connection between the two computers, transmitting data back and forth over the phone line. This is the internet before the internet. With this type of technology originally starting out in offices when it was released to the public, soon people began to see the potential for the home user as well. They began creating bulletin board systems, simple ways of creating communitys that can get together in one place and share knowledge and ideas without leaving their home. It wasn't soon after this people started creating DOORS, like Seth Able Robinsons world famous Legend of the Red Dragon (which is still played today I might add). In fact these doors were in fact the worlds first MMORPG's although technically they weren't Massively Multiplayer as you could only usually have between 10-20 people online at any one time. This was the creation of the internet as we know it today, however back then we didn't have the nice little interface with a mouse and so on, it was all done using DOS and UNIX systems which were predominantly text-based operating systems. The BBS systems used ASCII graphics but obviously they weren't very good next to todays standards. These old BBS systems do still exist out there however you no longer dial them up but connect to them via telnet. Synchronet is the most popular BBS system still available for download and remains free, but you won't really find many people will visit. I used to run a synchro server a while back with ALL the old popular door games, but I only had about ten regular visitors and in the end closed the site.

Right well if you can be patient the next part of the tutorial I'm writing includes a forum and an admin panel, however it won't be ready for about 2 weeks. There are other good forum tutorials out there, and once you have run through them you can then go on to start making your own changes and additions. I'm sorry the next part of the tutorial won't be ready soon though, I've just been very busy getting my new site ready to go. Hope you got a copy of apache, php and mysql ready. If you aren't using WAMP and doing it yourself then install apache first of all, then install php and mysql after that. You need to install apache first because when you install php you need to select the "Apache 2.2.x" module and point it toward apaches config file. Also it would probably be best if you did a full install of php so you have all the extensions included (like GD2 and MySQL). Finally when setting up mysql, make sure you set it to a developer machine, this way the amount of concurrent connections is limited to about 15 which should keep memory consumption to a minimum. You will find around here we love to be helpful. Also since you have signed up looking for help are you aware of myCents and how they work? I suggest you click on the billing and support link on the left menu and sign up for it immediately using the same email address you signed up for this forum with. You earn myCents by making posts on these forums, and when you have gathered enough mycents they are converted in to $ in the billing and support area and you can use this money to purchase full premium web hosting packages. If you already knew that though then ignore this lol

I have just what you need, I have started writing a series of tutorials on how to create your own text based game using php and mysql. First of all I would suggest you run through this first tutorial called "PHP 101". This is an excellent tutorial and will get you to grips with the basics of php and mysql which will be enough for you to go on to my php text based mmorpg tutorial. I'll post the links for each tutorial below. I'll be writing more tutorials to go with the others soon, I've just had a busy month and haven't had chance to add to it yet. PHP 101: https://devzone.zend.com/6/php-101-php-for-the-absolute-beginner/ Text Based Game Tutorials: Part 1: Advanced User Account System Part 2: Creating your first modules I hope these get you through what you need to learn and well on your way to creating your own text based game. 8ennett

Ok what we have here seems to be a hard fact of not only the internet but also life. I can understand what you are trying to say, there are some websites out there which people have made which are still as of yet completely undiscovered and there is no way to properly index them all, well that's just phooey. Not forgetting DNS registration of course, and sub-sites hosted elsewhere like mysite.freewebs.com etc. are already indexed in the web hosts index so that's not a problem. Your websites online presence is more well documented than you would think. Just because you are on the trillionth page of google search results doesn't mean you aren't there. It's the same problem with say owning your own store in the world of the real people. You've setup shop down a back-alley and off the main street where all the people often travel. The first thing you do is put a sign on the top of your shop to let people know what it is. The same thing with a website, you put a banner on the top so people know what your website is about. Now this isn't going to do much good because your shop is still down an alleyway and the only people who will see your sign are those who actually come down to your shop, so what's the next step? There is a busy high street not very far away where many people pass by, just like popular websites on the internet, they pass through these sites daily. What we need to do is put a sign on the main street pointing to our little shop so people will start to know it is there, just like we enter in to banner exchanges with other sites, we advertise their sites, they advertise ours. Now we have a presence on the street, but it's still not much. Only the people passing by that particular area will see the sign and they aren't guaranteed to follow it so we need to start making more and more of a presence for ourselves. Talking to people in forums about your website would be the same thing as telling people you met in a bar about your shop. Handing out fliers for the shop would be the same as sending emails to people. Building up peoples knowledge about you gets you your visitors. You can't just sit back and expect people to turn up. You have to put in the work, and you also have to offer information or products people actually want or need. Also just to add to the opening of your post, yes the internet is basically just a series of networked computers linked via ISP's and DNS servers, kinda stating the obvious but still there are people out there who don't realise that. One of the funniest things I've seen regarding that is an episode of the IT crowd (The original British one though, not the awful american remake) which you will have to watch yourself http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/. The best practical joke ever lol.

Sorry for the delay in replying, haven't been able to get online for the past 2 weeks. Welcome to asta!

It might be prudent to check the date of a topic before replying to it. This topic was made 5 years ago and the last response was 4 years ago.

Yeah that's why I find it best to just turn off automatic updates in windows completely then update it manually periodically. It's also annoying if you have very limited bandwidth like myself, I could be waiting for an important document to download which is fairly large and suddenly windows starts downloading a new bunch of updates causing the other download to slowly grind to a halt.