FREE websites for shooting clubs

[Hemmers]

In light of this thread, I have come to realise how bad shooting clubs are at advertising their existence.

Since I am currently unemployed and have quite a lot of free time, I'm willing to build free websites for clubs that want them. The only stipulations are:

(1) that any site I build is kept up to date (I will be using Joomla! which allows even the most lay of laymen to log into the site and submit news, update opening times, etc).

(2) that if the club is affiliated to the NRA/NSRA or any other county/regional/national governing body that has a club finder or club listings on their site, then you submit the details for your shiny new site and get it listed. I'm not building sites if they aren't going to be publicised even a little bit! A site noone can find is no good to anyone!

Contact me at http://shootingwebsites.netne.net

[wiggy1234567]

Good job!

I have just done one for my club. Check it out and let me know what you think. It would be nice for someone fresh to look at it and tell me what is missing or wrong!

www.bedfordgunclub.co.uk

[Hemmers]

Nice Think it covers all the bases, my biggest complaint would be purely aesthetic (and doesn't affect the functionality) - I take it the page dragging down for miles is an unwanted glitch you've been unable to get rid of? The excessive length looks a bit odd, but nice site otherwise (obviously can't comment fully since I can't see what you've got in your members/committee areas).

Colour scheme is good, yellow is a bit bright but adds colour and offsets the grey backing nicely, and importantly isn't visually offensive (like some sites. Urgh, what's going on with the title text and the links, horrible bits of white round the text, etc!).

Like the rolling images on the home page. Gallery is well handled.

Have you custom coded this site? Doesn't look like an off-the-shelf CMS - or a reasonably heavily modded one if it is.

If you're pretty au fait with PHP, there's some nice gallery modules for Joomla! that could be mashed up in order to scavenge the "lightbox" effects instead of opening new windows for each picture (example of an implementation of "Simple Image Gallery" for Joomla! 1.5.x with lightbox effects here). Most are offered freely and can be hacked around, as long as you stick in a little recognition note next to your copyright tag.

[wiggy1234567]

It is all customer coded in dreamweaver - with a mix of xhtml, java, flash, ccs and php.

There are still a few minor tweaks and additions to be made - including the long page!

I have chosen not to use the flashy gallery effects as on my slow computer and snail pace broadband they annoy me when loading.

The yellow is the club colour!

Thanks for you comments

Nick

[AD_K]

How did you deal with making a secure area? our club website host doesnt support ssl so im a bit confused as to what the best route would be??

Cheers

Adam

[Hemmers]

I have to say I can't really do it myself - just know the theory. But I'd try and go the PHP/MySQL route.

1. Your login page (using PHP) takes the username and password and hashes the provided password
2. A script compares it against the hashed password in the database
3. It matches or doesn't. If it does match (i.e. authenticates) you start a PHP session which allows the user into your private pages. PHP sessions are widely used for passing data from one page to another - it's what remembers what items you've added to your basket when shopping online, and remembers your username and password for each session so you don't have to login every single time you go to a new page.

[wiggy1234567]

The login pages were created via the web host support page (cpanel), using .htaccess & .htpasswd

Google them ... very simple and more than secure enough for our needs.