k, here's the issue. I have created my order page and have looked at all different documentation to how to pass IPN variables etc., to PayPal... I am still kind of stuck on how to get the information to PayPal and save to a mySQL database that I have set up...
My intention is to generate an OrderID as the customer is sent to PayPal to Process their order, then assign that specific OrderID to the customer on the Thank You Page. Here are my main issues:
1. How do I get the auto-incremented OrderID number from the newly created record generated (in my database) upon submit to PayPal for processing,
2. Passing the new OrderID to PayPal as a variable for the specific customer,
3. Pass the PayPal Transaction ID to the specific record in the mySQL database table for the specific customer,
4. How do I pass ANY VAriable to PayPal from a textbox on my Order Page,
I have more, but this is the main concern at this time...
Just a quick background on my programming experience, I have been a software developer for about 5 years now... From VB 5 to VB 6, SQL Server 7 and M$ Access databases, Data conversions, etc...
I am including this information so that you will know that I do have experience with programming... only php and mySQL are new to me and are a little bit different from VB and SQL Server 7 (and using ADO - ActiveX Data Objects.) Another thing is that I'm having to rely on another server to pass variables back to me as opposed to keeping all of the variables global (or set for instant access)... That is one reason why I'm getting a little bit lost here...
Another issue is keeping the database info in the source code invisible for obvious reasons... the connection string is parsed from the server, however, all of the other variables are still visible in the source code as I test out all different things... "includes" have been quite unsuccessful...
Please Please Please help me resolve these issues... I'm goin' bald ripping my hair out over this... it is the only thing keeping me from launching my site at this time and I was expecting to have this site launched already...
Thank You...

btw/ My test order page is here:
http://www.InfoAgency.Info/test.php