Hello All
First i would love to be able to post in the developers forum.....
My Business (or at least business idea) is: coming soon to
http://smallgreenpiecesofpaper.com/About me : I am a web designer/developer, of course i have a goodish working knowledge of HTML & CSS (i have been doing this job for 17 years).
I also have a reasonable knowledge with PHP/SQL (but do not class myself as a "proper programmer/coder" as i only really know PHP and basic JavaScript).
I am quiet familiar with building all types of eCommerce websites from "scratch".
Unfortunately i have little to no knowledge of Linux servers (someone else better qualified usually does this for me!).
Why i would like to post in the Developers forum:
As mentioned above, i can code most things/websites in PHP and anything in php that i dont know exactly how to code (maybe API's, etc), can usually be found on good tutorial sites of how to do, etc.
However! i dont think this is the case with BitCoin YET! and i am sure that i am not the only web developer that is searching for the "answers"
What i (and i think others) would like to know how to do, is integrate "eCommerce" sites with the BitCoin network/blockchain so that i can see when payments are made, etc.
I have seen a few API's from sites like blockchain, although i think their documentation could do with improving down to my level of knowledge as a basic web/php developer....
However i feel it would be better to not use a third party API as i dont like having to rely on them....
I think my answer is to install the bitcoin-qt client on my websites server and then run it as "bitcoind"
I have got as far as installing this on Ubuntu, but again i dont find this straight forward and no were near as simple as on a windows machine.
I have managed to install bitcoind and set up the bitcoin.conf file, but am now at the stage where i type "bitcoind" into the command line (to start running bitcoind) and now nothing happens (it may be downloading the bloackchain, but i don't know how to check if it is or not.....)
What i think would be nice is a thread in this forum, that is aimed at general web developers like me, as this will also really help with a wider adaptation of bitcoins.
If all the options could be detailed and also examples of code required to do this, that would be great and im sure would help more developers to be able to integrate their ecommerce sites better and without the need to use 3rd parties...
As people will see from the above, i am rather confused...... however one way or another i will work it out eventually and am very happy to then post on forums what i found out and the code i used to do this with. Hopefully this can then help others and help with the wider adoption of Bitcoin.
If anyone would like to offer their advice i would be VERY grateful
What i think i need to know is
1 how to install bitcoind on a remote server (not to store funds in, but so that i can easily check transactions, etc)
2 once installed how do i communicate with it (i have seen this
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/API_reference_(JSON-RPC) and understand the php parts, but again the documentations is a little short, but i will happily post any code i manage to write to this forum to help others understand it better too)
3 anything else i need to know
Looking forward to any replies and being allowed to post in other threads
Best Regards
Ford