Web Development - Create File Storage Website

[cpuxtech]

I am just beginning to get into web development and am wanting, for practice, to make a mock cloud website.

I want to make a great looking website with a login as the front page, and when you login it opens your account folder showing all the files you've uploaded to it. You can open, download, and edit these files, then update them back to your account and they are "saved on the cloud" to your account.

To make this I need to know the very general ideas/steps to take in order to make certain parts come alive.

1.) To make account management come alive, what do you use for account management, something like a MySQL database? Is this a common tool for big businesses to use?

2.) If users upload files to their account folder, would it be best for the files to just go to the server's filesystem and then create Like html links to the files on the server when a user signs in?

I need to understand the basics for account management and how to save preferences and files to an account...from what I know it seems MySQL will help with some of that but I am looking for some general background information.

[Minecraftonian]

Here is the way that I would handle this. 

 

1) You will need to either use cookies or sessions for handling the logins.

2) Use an if statement to handle the login / folder page. Example: 

If([user is logged in]) {

[show folder]

} else {

[show login] 

}

 

3) Use SQL databases to handle individual folders instead of real folders. That way you don't use up as much space. It works as virtual folders. Assign a user an ID at registration and add that ID to all files to manage that. 

4) Use the SQL databases to show files based on individual IDs

 

The reason you need to use sessions or cookies is because having an HTML files per user is going to be ungodly inefficient. Use use the sessions / cookies to determine what to display using a single PHP file or whatever language you decide to use. 

 

HTML is not going to work in itself for this project. If you don't know anything else, I would highly recommend learning PHP to start. 

 

If there is anything else you need please ask. I don't mind helping at all.

[madknight3]

You'll need good HTML/CSS skills for the "good looking website" part. Javascript might help as well.

 

You'll also need to know a server side language for the rest. PHP, Ruby on Rails, Python (through Django), and ASP.NET (with VB.NET or C#) are all valid choices (you only need to learn 1).

 

Are you familiar with any of this? If not, then you can of course learn as you go or you can use some good online tutorials that'll cover all the languages you need. If you have the time, I'd recommend going through tutorials first as you'll have less gaps in your knowledge and learn better coding practices.

 

One option I like to recommend since I've used it personally is Team Treehouse. It's $25 a month but there's a 14 day free trial to check it out. There are many other options out there though if that isn't for you.