Project: Dynamic Website

The brief

Build a complete dynamic site — a blog, a small store, or a directory — with PHP and MySQL.

• Multiple pages sharing a header/footer.
• A database with at least two related tables.
• Full CRUD on the main resource (PDO + prepared statements).
• A simple login using sessions, protecting the admin pages.
• Server-side validation and htmlspecialchars escaping everywhere.
• Clean, organised files (config, includes, pages).

Tackle this capstone in stages — build the public site first, then add the login that protects the admin actions. A clear order keeps a big project manageable:

1. Plan the database: design at least two related tables (for example posts and users) and write a config.php that opens a PDO connection.
2. Lay out the shell: build header.php and footer.php and include them on every page so the whole site shares one layout.
3. Build the public pages: list the main resource and a single-item detail page, each reading from the database with prepared SELECT queries.
4. Add full CRUD: create the add, edit and delete scripts for the main resource, every query using prepared statements and every form server-side validated.
5. Add login with sessions: make a login form that checks the user, then session_start() and store the logged-in user in $_SESSION; add a logout that calls session_destroy().
6. Protect the admin pages: at the top of each create/edit/delete script, check $_SESSION for a logged-in user and redirect to the login page if it is missing.
7. Harden and tidy: escape all output with htmlspecialchars(), confirm no SQL is built by string-joining, and organise files into config, includes and pages.