Technical changes to the website (some AJAX)
I made some changes “under the hood” that shall help me managing more courses. So far everything was each course with its own files in its own directory. So changes had to be done in ALL those many files. I now have just one top-level PHP file, and the courses utilize that file and only the text description for each course page is an individual file in that courses´ directory.
I also started utilizing mySQL. The “statistics” panel on the right on each course page is loaded AFTER the page has loaded using async. communication. I didn’t want to delay page load by waiting for those mySQL server data before being able to send the page, when that statistics data is of only marginal interest to most viewers.
Everything works as before now, but internally I have amuch better foundation for addinng more courses now, and to add more features. So far that statistics data isn’tcreated, I don’t count “Viewed” yet, for example. I need to improve the Flash part of my infrastructure in order to do that first, because I don’t want to cound a page view as “course has been viewed”, but wait for a message from inside the Flash course to be sure people really DID view the contents.
Anyway, I’m slow, but this is a hobby project - even though a serious one! - and I’ll keep updating and adding over time! My own benefit: a field for experiments, a showcase, and a way to keep up with modern web technologies not just passively. Oh, and I still want to make this a community project, I already checked the feedback some time ago, but I still have some work to do. Of course, anyone is free to come into the project right now, but before I can actively seek contributors I need to provide a better base and better instructions and explanations.
Mörre