This article will take you through all steps in developing your own, simple link exchange system using Dreamweaver CS3, PHP, MySQL and CSS.

Demo of the front end are available here: Front
I had to remove demo of the control panel because it became a target for spammers.

I´m assuming you have already your web server installed on your computer whether it is Apache or IIS – I will be using Apache on my Windows XP machine. Together with web server you will also need to install PHP and MySQL database. If you don´t know how to do it please refer to my other tutorial - Installing Apache, PHP and MySQL, which will take you through installation process.

For this tutorial I will be using MySQL 5.0.41 and PHP 5.2.3 - it should also work with PHP 4 and MySQL 4 versions.

Defining Project
To start with go to C:\webserver\Apache2\htdocs and create a new folder. Name it linkexchangesystem. Open this folder and create a few more, naming them: images, resources, admin and style.
Once you’ve done this, open your Dreamweaver CS3 and define new project by choosing Manage Sites from drop down menu in Files tab (fig. 01).

Fig. 01

In the dialog box click New and choose Site (fig. 02).

Fig. 02

In the new dialog box click Advanced tab and fill it in by providing your
Site name (Link Exchange System),
Local root folder (C:\webserver\Apache2\htdocs\linkexchangesystem\) and
Default images folder (C:\webserver\Apache2\htdocs\linkexchangesystem\images\). Leave all other options as default (fig. 03)

Fig. 03

Now in Category column choose Remote Info. From Access drop down menu choose Local/Network (this is because we are going to test it on our local machine, if you are using remote web server then choose FTP and provide all necessary information).
For Remote folder provide the same path as our Local root folder (C:\webserver\Apache2\htdocs\linkexchangesystem\). Check Maintain synchronization information, and Automatically upload files to server on save (fig. 04).

Fig. 04

Choose Testing Server from Category column on the left hand side. For Server model choose PHP MySQL. From Access dropdown menu select Local/Network. Path for Testing server should be C:\webserver\Apache2\htdocs\linkexchangesystem\,
and for URL prefix should be http://localhost/linkexchangesystem/.
Click OK and Done to save settings and close setup window (Fig. 05).

Fig. 05

Now the structure of your site´s root folder should look like the one in Fig. 06

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