How should I go about this?

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How should I go about this?

I have a MySQL Database of more or less 100 teachers, their names, and their phone numbers, stored in tables based upon their department at the school. I'm creating an iPhone app, and I've found that UITableViews and all the work that comes with it is just too time consuming and too confusing. Instead, I've been trying to create a web page on my server that loads all the data from MySQL and displays it using HTML, PHP, jQuery, and jQTouch for formatting.

My concept is that the separators will be by department, and the staff will be sorted alphabetically under each department. On the main page, each person's name will be clickable so they can go to ANOTHER page listing their name, email address, and telephone number, all linked so that the user can tap on the email or number and immediately email or call that person, respectively.

HOWEVER, I am completely at a loss for how I should start. Can anyone point me in the right direction for displaying the data? Am I going about it wrong in using PHP? Should I opt for something COMPLETELY different?

PHP to manage the database interaction and generate HTML is fine. There are heaps of tutorials on how to do that (e.g. http://www.w3schools.com/PHP/php_mysql_intro.asp) How to make it look nice is beyond the scope of this answer, and I'd recommend you search for table/CSS examples to get some ideas of what looks good and how they're implemented. If you need interactivity such as expanding rows or changing colors, then jQuery would be an appropriate next step, though you certainly don't need more than HTML + CSS for a nice looking table representation.

What I don't know about is the auto email/call functionality you're after, and whether you can get that "for free" from whatever is rendering the HTML. That's iPhone specific, not PHP/jQuery/etc... And I'd second Alex's advice that if UITableView is the right tool for the job then you will definitely be better off in the long run just buckling down and learning it. (And going through that will probably make pickup up other parts of the API much easier to boot.)

LVB 2010-09-21 03:51:22

The only problem I actually have with this answer is that jQTouch follows a very strict HTML structure, which I think I came up with a viable solution this morning for... I'll post it back here if it works.

esqew 2010-09-21 15:17:24

Instead of loading my PHP in my <body>, I created a function that retrieved the data via mysql_fetch_assoc(), which added all the information and created each individual div of data AS WELL AS injecting a <script> to $.append() the list item content for each item retrieved via the mysql_fetch_assoc(). Thanks for the responses anyway!

esqew 2010-09-24 04:09:45

ansaurus

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How should I go about this?

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