The MU forums have moved to WordPress.org

How do I add a recipe database (13 posts)

  1. CBO
    Member
    Posted 16 years ago #

    Hi, I'm new to Wordpress, and MySQL, and PHP, and all of this! I want to set up a recipe database on my blog. One that visitors can search and get results for, and have the search results (each individual recipe) be like a blog post - that they can comment on, also rate, and also be able to add their own recipes (with my approval). I'd also like to have each recipe have tags, for a cloud tag, so that they could click on a tag and list the recipes for a certain category.

    My question is, how do I go about this? Are there plugins available? Should I use a separate database, or add on to the existing one? Is it a whole separate programming issue? How would I tap into adding the comments, etc? Should each recipe be a "static" post (maybe for the search engines' sake)? If so, could the recipe "section" be kept separate from the "regular" posts?

    Sorry, I am really new to this. Any help, or even suggestion on how to do this would be greatly appreciated!

  2. SteveAtty
    Member
    Posted 16 years ago #

    you may well find that a wiki is easier for recipes.

  3. andrea_r
    Moderator
    Posted 16 years ago #

    make a recipe category and write a new post for each recipe. Or, if the whole blog is for recipies, just .,.... write a post as a recipe.

    It's not that complicated.

    Are you using MU or regular Worpdress?

  4. CBO
    Member
    Posted 16 years ago #

    I'm using regular WordPress. I thought I messed up by posting here, so I posted in the regular WordPress forums, too. Sorry for the dup.

    Maybe you are right, I can just post them and categorize them. Or maybe a wiki. Both good idea.

    What is MU, anyway?

  5. lunabyte
    Member
    Posted 16 years ago #

    MU is server level software that allows for multiple blogs to be run and administered through a single set of files.

    If you're just stepping into WordPress, ignore MU.

    The prime example of MU is that it is the core system that powers WordPress.com. They're MU users as well. Although they have heavily modified their system from what MU is.

    And, needless to say, these are the forums for that particular software.

    Out of curiosity, how exactly did you come across this forum, and was it pretty confusing or unclear that it was not for WordPress?

  6. hzp1
    Member
    Posted 15 years ago #

    Hi all. I'm an experienced wordpress user, doing their first install of WPMU. Things going ok, but I reraise this question because I want to do something very similar.

    I'd like a searchable, contributable recipe database. I'd like to be able to add photos, tags, etc.

    I don't think using the post method is going to be effective in this case, I think there need to be structured areas for the name of the recipe, the temperature of the recipe, the ingredients, etc. (okay, its not for recipes, its for glazes, same difference).

    I realize that wordpress MU has far less plugins that wordpress, but any suggestions?

  7. SteveAgl
    Member
    Posted 15 years ago #

    categorieds and tags answer you questions about recipe, you can categoryse and tag them in alla way you need...

    But really i can't understand what WPMU relay with this... it's a multiblog system not a mutiauthor system like it seems you need.

  8. hzp1
    Member
    Posted 15 years ago #

    well no, i do need a multiblog, otherwise i wouldn't bother with MU. This is just one aspect of the site as a whole. I really don't believe that categories and tags answer the problem... I am however, looking at different form models to see if that will. Thanks.

  9. SteveAtty
    Member
    Posted 15 years ago #

    I would suggest that you use a Wiki for your recipes because you really want a multi-author single "user" site rather than a multi-user site. Wiki's allow you to do page templating and you can start to do things with embedded databases inside the wiki if you are really mad enough (and yes I was!)

  10. andrea_r
    Moderator
    Posted 15 years ago #

    If the recipes section is a significant part of your site, then I wouldn't use WPMU for this either.

    It's *blog* software. Forcing it to do too much of something else is a real headache.

  11. hzp1
    Member
    Posted 15 years ago #

    I think calling WP blog software is really undermining it. Because at base, all blog software really isn't blog software, its a CMS.

    The multiblog is the most significant part of the site. However, I would like to have a database users can contribute to and search, but again, there need to be clearly defined fields so you can search by field, rather than a wordsearch. For instance, if people want to see all the recipes in salads, rather than search for the word salad, they can browse the salad category.

  12. andrea_r
    Moderator
    Posted 15 years ago #

    Generally, I would more than agree with you, but given the results you want and the way you want it to behave would involve a *lot* of custom code. Also, while you can do a whole lot of things with WP, WPMU *was designed* to be a blog farm.

    It's the same as if I said that yes, what you want IS possible, because it's php. Anything is possible. ;) Does it exist? Is it easy? No to both. :D

    For the recipe part, you'd have to have separate new database tables to store & retrieve all the information efficiently, and then you'd need to decide if they were global or blog specific. If blog-specific, do they also need global features? Then you'd need to build an input screen, assuming on the backend somewhere, since you already said you didn't want to use the post area, and then to display the information you'd need to build your own custom template tags and page templates. More depending on if it were just local or also blog-specific.

    I'm mostly just explaining it all out so you have an idea of the amount of custom coding involved. It'd be quite a chunk of code, and not something that can be whipped up in an afternoon.

    (Ha! cooking pun there... :D)

  13. hzp1
    Member
    Posted 15 years ago #

    ok, THAT explained it effectively- and also, I wasn't really aware that MU wasn't as flexible as WP. I think based on that recommendation, I might actually go back to WP for this job.

    I think a lot of what you described above could be handled by cforms to its own database... it would just leave the search page and templates to be completed... but yes, it would be a serious hack.

About this Topic