Making a webcomic: "dynamic hyperlinks"

[squidgetx]

Yeah, so I'm starting my first foray into web development (yay!) And I'm trying to build a webcomic (yay!) Except I don't know how.

I get html and css, the design isn't the problem. The problem for me are the "next" and "previous" buttons. I can think of two ways to make them work properly:

1) Every webpage has unique hyperlinks (pain in the butt and kinda inefficient)
2) Use some scripty thing to define where these buttons will direct the user.

So, my question is, what's the best way to do this? Am I overestimating how inefficient option 1 will be? How can I even do option 2? I skimmed over some javascript/php/asp tutorials but nothing jumped out at me as being able to do this.

Note: The comics would be numbered I guess. Like XKCD and cyanide/happiness and every other webcomic there is. LOL

Thanks in advance

[Juju]

Yeah, you would get the comic number from the url ($_GET in PHP) then do +1 and -1 for the mext amd prev buttons.

[BlakPilar]

Yeah, you could use PHP like Juju said or, my personal favorite, ASP(.NET).

[XVicarious]

Use PHP, its pretty much standard. And there are WAY more resources out there. Hell I could help you.

[squidgetx]

Hmm, could I get some help? It's kinda annoying that I can't test out PHP scripts offline, i'm waiting for the nameservers to resolve atm.

I see that the $_GET function gets the variable off the url, so if the variable is p and the url is blah/?p=10 the $_GET[p]=1, right? Then what- do you just do like $_GET[p]+1=$_GET[p]?

[cooliojazz]

Code: (php) [Select]

<?php $cur = $_GET[&#39;p&#39;]; ?>
<a href="/?p=<?php echo $cur - 1; ?>"><img src="thebestprevbuttonever"></a><a href="/?p=<?php echo $cur + 1; ?>"><img src="thebestnextbuttonever"></a>This would show two buttons, one linking to the previous comic, one linking to the next. (You could also add something like changing "$cur - 1" to "$cur > 0 ? $cur - 1 : 0" and "$cur + 1" to "$cur < $max ? $cur + 1 : $max" for safety as long as you always changed $max to the current comic number)  Need anything else?

[Eeems]

Hmm, could I get some help? It's kinda annoying that I can't test out PHP scripts offline, i'm waiting for the nameservers to resolve atm.

You should try working with xampp for offline testing
http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html
http://portableapps.com/apps/development/xampp

[squidgetx]

Code: (php) [Select]

<?php $cur = $_GET[&#39;p&#39;]; ?>
<a href="/?p=<?php echo $cur - 1; ?>"><img src="thebestprevbuttonever"></a><a href="/?p=<?php echo $cur + 1; ?>"><img src="thebestnextbuttonever"></a>This would show two buttons, one linking to the previous comic, one linking to the next. (You could also add something like changing "$cur - 1" to "$cur > 0 ? $cur - 1 : 0" and "$cur + 1" to "$cur < $max ? $cur + 1 : $max" for safety as long as you always changed $max to the current comic number)  Need anything else?

Oh wow, I didn't realize that php outputs html LOL. Thanks . So just to clarify, I would then have to name each comic's page /?p=#, correct?

[Eeems]

Oh wow, I didn't realize that php outputs html LOL. Thanks . So just to clarify, I would then have to name each comic's page /?p=#, correct?

No, you would have to somehow fetch the image of each comic with this one page. Something like:

Code: [Select]

<img src="img/page_<?php echo $cur; ?>.png"/> you would then store all your comics in img/ named page_#.png

[cooliojazz]

well, it would be one file, "index.php" which you can pass different arguments for the page numbers.  That code just takes the argument and outputs buttons linking to the right page, so you don't really "name" them, other than the one main file, which is probably going to be index.php.  Does that make sense and answer the question?
Darn you ninjas!!! But yes, also what Eeems said =P

[Eeems]

well, it would be one file, "index.php" which you can pass different arguments for the page numbers.  That code just takes the argument and outputs buttons linking to the right page, so you don't really "name" them, other than the one main file, which is probably going to be index.php.  Does that make sense and answer the question?

I was thinking about saying something about index.php

Darn you ninjas!!! But yes, also what Eeems said =P

You should turn on the option to keep people from ninja'ing you

[squidgetx]

Ok, I see. Wow, php is pretty powerful lol. And then for alt text and stuff should I use an xml file?

Code: (xml) [Select]

<1><title>Title</title><alt>Alt text</alt></1>

Code: (php) [Select]

<h2><?php echo $xml->$cur->title ?> </h2>
<img.... title=<?php $xml->$cur->alt ?>>

Does this work?

[Eeems]

Ok, I see. Wow, php is pretty powerful lol. And then for alt text and stuff should I use an xml file?

Code: (xml) [Select]

<1><title>Title</title><alt>Alt text</alt></1>

Code: (php) [Select]

<h2><?php echo $xml->$cur->title ?> </h2>
<img.... title=<?php $xml->$cur->alt ?>>

Does this work?

I'm not sure if that works. You could always use flat text files for each of them, so have title/ contain page_# with the title text/page_# contain the alt text etc
Just use file_get_contents("path/to/file_{$cur}"); to get the contents of the file.

[squidgetx]

So every comic would then be accompanied by 2 txt files, one like named alt1 and the other named title1? I see how I can use file_get_contents, but is there a way to have all the titles and text in one file? Or am I not understanding what you're saying?

[Eeems]

You could use xml, I'm just not sure if you can access it that way, feel free to try it out though. You could also use flat text files if you did some nice formatting, like grabbing the title from the first line, the alt text from the second line and the rest of the content from whatever is leftover.