PHP & MySQL® Web Development All-in-One Desk Reference for Dummies®

4.1. Designing the Online Catalog

The basic function of an online catalog is to display products to the customers. If a store offers only a dozen products, you can just display them all on one page. However, a store generally offers many products, more than you can reasonably display on a single Web page.

Usually, the products are categorized. A small number of products can be successfully categorized by one category level, such as categorizing jewelry into necklaces, earrings, and bracelets. If the store offers a large number of products, however, you might need to use two, three, or more category levels to successfully categorize the products into categories small enough to be displayed.

For instance, the example in this chapter is a store that sells furniture. We use two category levels for this example. Furniture is categorized first at a higher category level, such as office, bedroom, living room, and so on. Second levels within the top level of furniture are created, such as by categorizing living room furniture into couch, coffee table, and lamps. The product might be a standing lamp, which would be in the category Living Room: Lamp.

If your products are categorized, the online catalog typically first displays a page showing the categories available. The customer can select a category to see all the products in that category. If you have several levels of categories, the customer might need to select successive categories before reaching the product Web page.

Even with ...