I want to see if anyone out there working with web development has ever tried or seem something similar to this tried before. I want to know if you think its even possible without being way to intensive.
I have been designing the website/graphics and setting up the e-mail system for my boss’s new company(www.deltascan.net, sorry the public site isn’t up yet). He gave me a list of things he wants included in the page, most of which have been decently easy, except for this one thing.
My java menu is setup so when you scroll over certain links a child menu scrolls out with more links. He wants one of these to be a “Recent Updates” link, and when you scroll over it have it dynamically list the most recent updates to the webpage.
Now personally have never seen this done, but it actually is a neat idea, and I like a challange. So here’s my idea. Create a timed task (say every two hours) preferably in PHP but it might have to be assigned to the server itself. The task will scan the site’s root folder and all the child folders, either via file info or get_last_mod info, and create a list of say the 5 most recently uploaded files (I currently have no content management, so its done entirely by ftp uploading for now). Then I will have a php script retrieve this info from the server, and link it onto the seperate “most recent updates page”, available via the parent item in the menu.
I will use the PHP inside a javascript link function to dynamically update the links, and also assign the links a variable. I will save the code on the page as a .js file.
Now I could take this .js file and include it in the headear (which is itself included one very page), then have the child menu display each individual variable that the links were assigned and display them.
Of course it would have to some sort of onmouseover link, as running all that when loading the page would be way to intensive. But as it stands does anyone think thats remotely possible? It’s a pretty complicated idea as I also have to maintain and design everything simultaneously, and don’t want to get in over my head. Recommendations would be nice, or a simple hell no. Sorry for the long post and thanks for your time.