You've seen how many Web sites (including this one) allow you topost comments and opinions on the material they publish. If you've everwished you had this capability on your Web site, or are simply curious asto how this is accomplished, read on.
I've always thought that the nice thing about sites like Slashdot [http://www.slashdot.com], PHPBuilder [http://www.phpbuilder.com] and Devshed [http://www.devshed.com] is that they allow users to comment on the articles and news items posted on the site. By adding this much-needed element of interactivity (not to mention striking a blow for free speech), content-rich portals build a sense of community among users, offer an immediate and public forum for user feedback...and also provide a fair amount of entertainment in the eccentric and unpredictable postings that sometimes appear.
Over the next few pages, I'm going to take you through the process of adding this kind of interactivity to your own Web site. I'm going to base this loosely on a project we did recently for one of our customers, and so this case study will make some assumptions as to the existing architecture of the Web site in question. However, you should have little trouble adapting the principles below to add the same kind of capabilities to your own pages.
Let's get started!
This article copyright Melonfire 2001. All rights reserved.
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