Need theme recommendation for new SQL website

I have been asked to build a secure website that will receive sensor data which will be stored in an SQL or mariaDB. So am wondering if there is a paricular theme that is built specifically for this.

Thanks!

Just about any theme will do.
It all depends on if you want a canned theme or do you want the flexibility of something like UiKit or Foundation Foundry etc.

A theme is only really for the look of your site, there aren’t any themes I’m aware of that have a data capture/processing ability built-in.

You will most likely need to look in to finding a stack to achieve this, though without knowing more about how the data is transmitted/submitted it’s difficult to know if there is a stack out there that can handle this situation.

The theme only controls the look.

You need a couple of stacks and/or at least HTML & PHP knowledge to recieve the data and store it in a database, then you might need some skills to retrieve the data and a security concept to secure the data.

Without knowing any details, i would recommend to have a look at the Datably stacks (https://datably.navigio.io/) from @jay to get the storage part done (haven’t worked with it yet, but they seem to be the only database stacks in development at the moment)

Securing data, Sitelok by Vibralogix (Buy Membership Software and Systems Online UK | Vibralogix) could be a start, @joeworkman has a great stack to integrate Sitelok (Sitelok Stack for RapidWeaver) into your project.

In conjunction with Datably, I have developed the Gatekeeper Stack, which can secure your data. I plan to sell both as a bundle.

https://gk.navigio.io

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Thanks for the feedback.

I do not usually use RW, but thought there might be a dedicated theme made for this purpose. And, btw, themes seem to be scarce since the last time I visited.

Thanks for your feedback.

Thanks for the info.

Good to know about GateKeeper. I will look into it.

Thanks!

@chicago Perhaps themes are more scarce relative to when you last visited. Many many folks are now using more general, more powerful, frameworks: Foundry, Source, ui Kit, Foundation, Platform and some others. So while there are fewer themes, there actually are a LOT more options because frameworks are much more flexible design-wise compared to themes.

Thanks for your very informative comments.

Do these frameworks all function identically or are each different in some respects?

I am definitely interested in looking at each of these frameworks. This concept never crossed my mind.

Off topic - Earlier today I tried one of Michael David’s RW themes and RW8 seemed to ignore it completely. Perhaps I should look at a RW theme to get things working again.

I sincerely appreciate your taking the time to help me with this.

@chicago Frameworks do not all function identically. In a very general way the basic setup can be similar: you define how the header looks, how the footer looks, etc. But several details are different. I’d explore different frameworks: especially the documentation (text and video). As one example here’s the documentation for Foundry: Foundry Documentation

I can believe Michael David’s themes might have problems as they have not been updated for a few years. A good starting place for free and paid themes is ThemeFlood by Will Woodgate. He offers many free and paid themes. Typically his themes offer a lot of options in terms of how they are setup. More here: https://themeflood.com

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@Mathew

Thanks again for your very informative guidance.

For the sake of clarity, I quit using RW back in JAN 2018 because of all the issues I was having with themes, but mostly because I never had full control over how the resultant sites looked after much work. (I have probably purchased 25-30 themes plus all of the stacks and addons, so I do have an inventment.) That said, I learned HTML, CSS and PHP. I do not claim to be a master web builder, but I do finally feel that I can accomplish my web goals with a lot less hassle and less wasted time.

Back on topic: I have had an extensive look at Foundry and am willing to give it a go. This new website will not require all the bells and whistles that Foundry is capable of, but it must be secure and I hope I can add the PHP it will require without a lot of drama. I will also add that these new frameworks are going to take time to master, but no pain, no gain. I get it.

I sincerely appreciate your help,
Phillip

Frameworks have become super popular because other folks had similar issues as you. Themes are essentially “color by numbers”. That works for some folks. But certainly not all. Frameworks essentially give you a blank canvas.

The same trend has been happening in the WordPress world: less popularity for specific themes, more buy-in to more general page builders (Elementor) or theme/block combos that play nice with Gutenberg Blocks such as Blocksy.

Well said!

To give you some idea of my history, I go waaaay back to RW 3. That was in JAN '07. I keep my receipts! :slight_smile:

Do you recall Ed Brenner within these forums? He was the best. He helped everyone, anytime. If not, you’re forgiven. :grinning: Unfortunately, he has left us for the Promised Land.

Anyway, it’s good to be back. The RW community seems to be as strong as ever.

Thanks again for your help.

Actually, Foundry is the reason why I am still sticking around with RW for some small gun’n’run projects. Over the time, I migrated most of my older projects into Foundry projects, if they are still on RW.

Adding a bit PHP for interactive stuff is not a big hassle, I have some small supporting stacks, either written on my own (conditions and plain PHP support) or use some existing data storage stacks (AirTable, Goolge Sheets…) or modified them to my needs.

Back to your project:
To avoid to much custom conding, you could use the Formloom Plugin by Yabdab for a quick approach (I am using it a lot for simple order forms. The FormSnap stacks should work, too. But I haven’t used them until now, as they have some different functionality)

  • Setup a form for the sensor data you want to retrieve
  • In the stack settings, untick “Send Reciept”, and tick “Do Not Send Mail”
  • Then enable “Auto Saving to MySQL” (or Google Sheets) and enter the database configuration and credentials for MySQL and, very important, map the database fieldnames to the form fields: the fieldnames in the column “Field/Header Title” must exactly match the database table names:

    CleanShot 2021-06-06 at 17.29.46
  • Now publish the page. With the given url of the form (sensor_input/), you should be able to enter data and store it into the database.
  • Formloom has a quick data viewer built in, in Preview Mode you can see the url to access the stored data:
    CleanShot 2021-06-06 at 17.20.18
  • Enter your username and password, and you will see the data stored:

Hope this helps.

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Thank you soooo much for your in-depth post. This will be very helpful to me once I figure out how to install the SSL cert for the new website that I have been commissioned to build.

Background
I just completed building a water tank WIFI monitoring system for our water association which provides water for 62 households. We have a 40% water loss and we’re hoping that having the ability to monitor the water levels of both water tanks will help pinpoint this water loss. Saving the data - every 5 minutes or so - should allow us to take a hard look at water usage patterns, if they exist. This is truly a can of worms, because the water loss could be the result of line leaks, illegal line tapping and so on. I will stop there.

Back On Topic
Once the new website is SSL secure, I will build the webpage that will receive the tank data. I am going to also build a dashboard that will provide visual feedback 24/7.

Foundry
Because PHP make perfect sense to me, I took a look at the Zend framework. This framework, from what I have read, would probably be more trouble that it would be worth. So long as I can add my PHP scripts without a lot of drama, then I will go with Foundry.

And, I may completely redo my woodworking website with Foundry if I think it would be an improvement. Time permitting, of course.

I have copied your entire post to my log book and will refer to it as I progress.

I sincerely appreciate your help,
Phillip

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