Drug Database

[NavyPsych]

I have a website that I would like to add a pharmacology
'database' (for lack of a better word) of about 50-75 drugs. Basically
I want users to be able to click on any drug and quickly have a page
refreshed with that drug's data, with all pages having the exact same
format, i.e. drug indications, contraindications, side effects, etc.
all organized into different sections (probably using CSS table).

My domain (godaddy) doesn't support PHP, so that isn't an option. I
would prefer that this be a client-side application as I would like
the information on the page to change as quickly as possible, i.e. not
reload the page, or not have to go to the server and back. I
definitely don't want to have 50-75 separate html pages!

Can this be done with JavaScript, AJAX - with some XML or MS SQL
serving as the data repository? I can normally figure out how to
tackle these problems, but the more time I spend in the computer book
isles at the bookstore, the more confused I get. None of the books
seem to list examples of what I'm trying to do. What's the easiest way
to accomplish this? Do I have to tackle learning ASP.NET to do this?
I know a little VB, but the learning curve looks like it would be
steep.

 

[The Natural Philosopher]

Don't you mean your godaddy is your Web host (not your domain)?

I have a domain hosted by GoDaddy that uses PHP under Linux.

You just can't run PHP under Windows:
Deprecation of Windows Hosting PHP support
ArticleLast Updated: July 30, 2007 4:50 PM


You could have a single page with all of the information then just
show/hide each drug based on the user's request.


"Easiest" often depends on what technologies you know.
You could use MS-Access with ASP pages, PHP with My-SQL, et.al.

Who is your audience?

Mmm.

The way I have done similar is to :-

get a fixed IP address from my broadband supplier. The bandwidth is
entirely adequate for a low volume application.
Get a cheap Debian linux box and set it up with apache, php and mysql,
and webmin.
put a redirect for web access on my router
set up my domain so that www.mydomain.com points to my public ip address.
Designed my database.
Make the using webmin and populate them a bit using that, and a bit
using mysql scripts.
hack some php stuff to display the info and have menus.

I've used a shade of javascript here and there, but not a lot. The
guts of it is in the php/mysql stuff.

Have a look at my first rather crude attempt for someone.

www.peterrake.com

If this fits the bill I'd be happy to e-mail you the various bits and
pieces, but you would have to use them as 'examples' - I can't spend
time designing someone else's stuff.


There is a private administration page where picturse are uploaded and
text is entered. But you don't get access to that!

But a definite way to begin is to get an old PC, (no need for screen or
keyboard once its up) and install the latest Debian on it, apache2,
Mysql and php5 and webmin plus support libraries for mysql under php5.
You can then learn what you need on a local machine until the site
'runs' then if you have a static IP address, make it globally accessible
and get friends to test it.

Then get the O'Reilly mysql book, and a book on HTML and php5 and 'git
coding'