I think I've asked a similar question before.

A colleague has several spreadsheets that contain the archive information for the archaeological finds on University digs, going back several years. We want to make this information publicly available, in a way that is easily searchable, and offers the ability for a record to present a link to an image, or images.

A basic option would be to make the spreadsheet have hyperlinks to images saved in a folder structure relative to the document, save the spreadsheet as html, upload the whole package and use the browsers search functions to find what you want.

But I'm wondering if there's a better option, which isn't going to cause weeks of headscratching on my part. Access and databases are my weak spot to be honest.

What you need is to export the data to CSV/XML and have your website read this information and present it in a searchable way. Off the top of my head a very quick, easy and hacky solution would be a Joomla website, Virtumart to display each find as a 'product' and CSVI to import/export the data.

Hmm, that might do the trick.  Would that process be able to handle multiple spreadsgedts/xml files though?

No reason why not as long as the spreadsheets all match in format I think. It's been a while since I used CSVI but it probably allows multiple CSV import configurations too.

im sure it would be a easy enough if you imported into a MySQL
sure google would turn up loads of results & using mysql would be common sense for web hosting.

I've done a similar thing in Sharepoint before, but I'm not sure if would meet your needs.

Used to import CSV files into mysql regularly. It works just fine.

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The problem is, setting up the mysql database, which of all things computer, is probably going to cause me the most grief out of everything I've done in the last 5 years.

I need a solution that is relatively simple, that someone with no IT qualifications beyond A-Level, and only a little basic programming experience, can handle. And that is at a push, as I don't intend on being at the university in 12 months time so it has to be totally idiot proof for whoever takes it over...

I liked clock'ds suggestion as all the technical stuff is handled by joomla and virtumart, leaving pretty much just sorting out the front end.

Setting up databases is easy enough billions of guides on google and you only have to do it once.

If you're not fussed too much how the frontend looks then it seems like the easiest option to avoid getting your hands dirty trying to manage it all yourself. you could potentially have the lot setup in one afternoon/evening I reckon.

Will it make much difference if I don't make it one of those related databases? EG, lots of linked tables? That's my main stumbling block. If I can get away with creating a database with one table that contains all the fields in the spreadsheet I might be able to cope...

is there an off the shelf product? depending on the info, but things like coppermine photo gallery are based on SQL & do the hardwork for you.

Looking at the virtuemart demo site, if I can remove the accounting and purchase features and just rename other bits, and add a few more sections, it would be ideal.

EG, categories = dig years, manufacturers could be changed to types of find. It would allow some good sorting, and as there's a bunch of fields for things like technical specs, descriptions etc, if I can adapt those for the spreadsheet info, that would be relatively painless I think. It'd certainly look better than if I did it from scratch.

The accounting and purchase features can be ignored, if you don't use things like pricing etc then the listings you add won't be basketable/orderable (you can simply hide the basket, etc menu options too). I think there is a 'brochure' switch somewhere.

I'm running a site at the moment on Joomla 2.5/VM2 and I've used CSVI previously so if you get stuck I can give you a hand no problem.

I think this is a much better solution that trying to draw something up from scratch, plus its using current and maintained software. It's a bit overkill I suppose but its easily the best way to manage it and costs you nothing, less in time.

Quote from: Clock'd 0Ne on May 01, 2013, 09:59:23 AM
The accounting and purchase features can be ignored, if you don't use things like pricing etc then the listings you add won't be basketable/orderable (you can simply hide the basket, etc menu options too). I think there is a 'brochure' switch somewhere.

I'm running a site at the moment on Joomla 2.5/VM2 and I've used CSVI previously so if you get stuck I can give you a hand no problem.

I think this is a much better solution that trying to draw something up from scratch, plus its using current and maintained software. It's a bit overkill I suppose but its easily the best way to manage it and costs you nothing, less in time.

Basket could be handy.. how many times do you search for info & end up with 20 tabs open. Nice 'basket' for you to view later. Then Checkout & have everything mailed to you in a nice pdf.