Need some help

[bryan]

I have a situation that's pretty delicate that I need some help on.
I've been stumped for awhile I just need some advice on the best
possible solution.

The problem:
I have a site I'm making where users can have profiles (as with most
websites) but each users home page (profile page) will/should have the
ability to be dynamic and drastically different. For example if user1
wants to have a 3 column layout with christmas colors..cool. If user2
wants the basic layout/template we provide..cool. So user1 and user2's
layouts vary drastically.

Another problem: Users can have multiple "objects" displayed determined
by "weight" so if they want their picture to be in the top right hand
corner, they give the "picture" object a weight of 1...etc.
I need to know how to make this scalable so I can write several
layouts/template color schemes and tie them in dynamically depending on
user preference so that users can upload their own/people can make
their own. i need some help with the technical terminology as well.
This is my first attempt at something like this and to be perfectly
honest I'm not too sure how to start. Any help is appreciated.

[David Haynes]

bryan wrote:

I have a situation that's pretty delicate that I need some help on.
I've been stumped for awhile I just need some advice on the best
possible solution.

The problem:
I have a site I'm making where users can have profiles (as with most
websites) but each users home page (profile page) will/should have the
ability to be dynamic and drastically different. For example if user1
wants to have a 3 column layout with christmas colors..cool. If user2
wants the basic layout/template we provide..cool. So user1 and user2's
layouts vary drastically.

Another problem: Users can have multiple "objects" displayed determined
by "weight" so if they want their picture to be in the top right hand
corner, they give the "picture" object a weight of 1...etc.
I need to know how to make this scalable so I can write several
layouts/template color schemes and tie them in dynamically depending on
user preference so that users can upload their own/people can make
their own. i need some help with the technical terminology as well.
This is my first attempt at something like this and to be perfectly
honest I'm not too sure how to start. Any help is appreciated.

This is a variation of the "tiled window" problem. Perhaps a google
search on that will help. One strategy that worked was to make window
placement analogous to a chess problem where each object vying for
display real-estate is seen as 'attacking' surrounding objects. The
relative strength of the 'attack' provides data into the size of
real-estate the object is allowed.

It's not a simple problem to solve from scratch...

-david-

[bryan]

hmm...