I’ve been increasingly dissatisfied with the layout of my guns page.  It’s kind of bland and the way they’re laid out is kind of cumbersome.  At the same time, the way the page is maintained is a bit clunky (the page is generated using a PHP script that has the descriptions of all the guns as array entries in the code, which is not exactly high quality programming; but then, it was the first PHP script I’d ever written and I was in a hurry).

I’ve spent most of the day working on a new PHP script that will allow me more flexibility in how the page is laid out and in how the data is stored.  I’ve just gotten the code to the point where it can read an XML input file to pull the data in (it took me longer than expected, given the brain fog induced by a few too many rum-and-colas last night ).  The next step will be to write the code that uses the data to display the page.

My goal is to make this code flexible through the use of PHP templates for the various page elements and CSS style sheets to control presentation within the elements.  If I get really ambitious, I’ll look into autogenerating thumbnails.

If this works out, I may look into releasing the code for use by anyone who wants to create a gun gallery on their own website.