Very simple question - and advice needed

[andygrif]

Hello everyone - found out about Abyss today, downloaded and will install over the weekend.

But if I could pick the brains of some of the experts on tap, I would be grateful:

I'm very much a novice when it comes to servers and the like. I have made sites, and have a basic working knowledge of html, hosting them on the free webspace from my ISP, and that's pretty much where my knowledge ends.

I'm happy keeping my site on the webspace, it's simple and the bandwidth is better than my cable upload speed - however I have a large collection of music that I would like to be able to search over the web.

Hence my need for a webserver! I can export my database into html, xsl (but I haven't got a clue how to make xsl work) csv or ascii.

Here's my questions:

What do I do next?

What are your recomendations for a simple (and by that I mean SIMPLE!) database that can be hosted using Abyss?

How do I create a search page?

Is there anything else I should know?

Thanks in advance of your help and expertise.

Andy

[mcwilliams132]

I think you mean XLS - an Excel spread sheet.

XSL is an XML transformation page - it specifies how your XML data gets displayed

Depending on yoru database I'd keep it as a database and connect to with a server side scripting language of your choice;ASP, PHP, Pearl (all supported via Abyss witht he proper language pack).

I've seen some web based UNIVERSAL DATABASE VIEWERS that all you need to know is the database (or DSN) and a username and password and you can view all the data. That may be the easiest way of going about it.
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[andygrif]

Thanks for your reply...actually we were both wrong (but you were closest, it also exports to XML, not XSL)

It's actually a proprietary database that can't connect to other stuff - apart from exporting to those formats.

[iNaNimAtE]

The best combination of what you want would probably be around the PHP+MySQL area (when exporting your database in the HTML format).

Of course, what does the HTML file look like in the beginning?
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