I am creating a website for my church's youth group. I have most of the website finished, but they want a "virtual prayer wall."

Basically an applet that a user on the website will go to and type in their prayer, click submit, and the prayer will be posted on a page (that resembles a wall)

I know I'll need to use PHP (or something similar) and that I'll need a database to store the prayers. I'm fairly familar with PHP, and I've worked on databases before but I'm no expert. So if someone could point me in the right direction that would be greatly appreciated.

You can use http://www.phpbb.com/ for free.

I would make a pretty big css area with a brickwall backgound image in it.

I would then grab prayers and slap them onto the wall, perhaps using a table to distribute them evenly or if you want to be flash you could grab the prayes and GD them onto a wall image in a random fashion (providing they are readable) which would maybe be a nice effect.

ibbo

Yah i thought about using phpBB but its really overkill. I have wordpress running the rest of the site and i guess i could set it up as if they are making comments to a page. Yah i think i can do that. I was just hoping for something lighter.

Neat idea. I think you can do this with forum modding.
Try invision , vb, or phpbb2 forums. Get hold of a good modder.
He may charge you for that

Mambo is another option.

wordpress with the classic page.php style will allow you to comment. You might beable to make a Prayer Wall Template using the classic page.php page. The default wordpress page.php doesn't allow comments so it would have to be modified, depending on what theme it's based on.

yah im already working on using wordpress's comments. it will be the easiest to do i think

btw do any of you know of any handwritten fonts that are "websafe" - a font that is widely available across many browsers and operating systems

no, but if you are thinking of using it for headings and the like Wordpress has a plugin in that allows you to use any text and it'll turn it in to a graphic. Mostly for the title of the article but it can be used for thinks like Pages, Archives etc that are h2 elements you'll have to read the plugin for that information tho.

The Codex should link to it.

i looked around but couldn't find anything that turned text in to a graphic, even though i've seen it used before. You wouldn't happen to have a link you could provide me??

nvm i found some stuff .. thanks though

no problem I probably just would have posted the code as I don't have the link but have the plugin.

Well actually do you think you could post the code? I thought I found what I wanted but it's not now that I look at it.

Originally Posted by cpfreak23

Yah i thought about using phpBB but its really overkill. I have wordpress running the rest of the site and i guess i could set it up as if they are making comments to a page. Yah i think i can do that. I was just hoping for something lighter.

Not sure if you got this script for this yet but I have what your looking for. Just a simple php script that people can post up stuff...just like a guestbook but I will add what feilds you want. I don't feel like building the template for it but I will hook you up with all the files you need to get the functions you want. Its free if it is for a church but if you plan on useing it for anything else you will need to brake a nih off with some cheeze.