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I want to start a small engraving business and i was wanting to go online with it. I have very basic knowledge(3 weeks of tinkering) of what is needed to be done to place a business online. I know how to make a site the way i want it to look but im having trouble making the site DO what im wanting it to do. what i am stuck on is placing a message box(what to engrave) that can hold a page fulll of text with a few options under the box(for which the customer can choose the design) which im going to receive once payment is complete. would i need to learn how to use SQL or something? thanks for whatever responses i receive.

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For : the basic pieces you need are a multiline input for the engraving text, a few controls for the design choice, a server-side step that records the submission, and a payment flow that confirms the order before you act. As suggested, you can prototype by having a simple server script that emails or writes the submission to a file, and as noted, learning a server-side language and a small database is the more durable route. Both approaches are valid; choose prototype vs. production based on how many orders you expect and how reliable you need it to be.

A reliable workflow to implement now: accept the textarea and design choice in the form, then create a server-side order record with a unique order ID and status "pending" (store the engraving text and design ID). Save this before redirecting the buyer to a hosted payment checkout so you do not lose data. Have the payment gateway send a webhook/IPN back to your site; when payment is confirmed, mark the order "paid" and trigger the email/print/production step. If you use a database, MySQL TEXT stores up to 65,535 bytes (a page of text); use MEDIUMTEXT only if you expect huge inputs.

Practical cautions: always validate and sanitize the engraving text (escape output to avoid XSS), use prepared statements or an ORM to avoid SQL injection, never handle raw card data yourself (use hosted checkout or tokenization to avoid PCI burden), and keep backups. Start with a simple email- or file-based prototype to learn the flow, then migrate to a small DB and webhooks for reliability and easier order management.

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Member Avatar for Tropp

You could do this with a fairly simple php, no SQL would be required

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