(I won't be able to make any meetings for a while, but I will be sure to
read anything archived on the site.)
I am considering using Drupal to make an integrated site, versus a
semi-integrated mashup of SMF 2.0 (forum), osCommerce 2.3.1 (ecommerce),
and home-brew PHP code providing entry into the forum and store, as well
as some gallery/about_us/info_pages/etc.
I realize that I can't (without a lot of pain and work) get SMF and osC
to use the same member ID system and session control, so that signing on
to one will let a user jump back and forth among SMF, osC, and my custom
pages without losing session (sign-on, cart contents). That's what's
primarily attracting me to Drupal, in that everything is automatically
integrated. So, is it worth the steep learning curve to get Drupal to do
what I want? Harmonizing the CSS of SMF and osC to blend in with the
rest of the site is a lesser issue, although I may never get a totally
integrated look and feel with separate products.
I want a forum with the quality of SMF (or better, with good anti-spam
measures such as preventing robot signup and examining posts for spam
characteristics and dealing with it), I want a store that's as good (or
better than) as a standalone osC store (various credit card payment
services, mixture of physical goods and digital downloads, multiple tax
rates for different classes of goods, flexible shipping, etc.). I want a
gallery where I can not only post pictures along with text information,
but also a thumbnail page and navigation links among the pages. And I
want to be able to put in arbitrary pages and arbitrary links among
pages (e.g., a series of essays each with a link to a discussion area,
and in the discussion area (part of the forum) linking back to the
essays). Product sales pages should have links to the forum section
(customer product discussions) and vice-versa, so no matter where you
come in or sign on, you can get to sales from discussion and from sales
look at the discussions. I need to restrict certain discussion areas to
registered users, and possibly to listed product purchasers.
Can Drupal handle all this fairly cleanly, or should I continue looking
at custom coding? Anyway, that's what I'd be looking to do with Drupal,
and I'm hoping that at least part of your presentation could could
address that angle.
On 12/19/2010 5:09 PM, Sean Dague wrote:
As I'm working on the Drupal presentation for January, I'm curious if
there are any specific questions that people have up front. If you
post any of those here, or to me directly, I can make sure to have
material to touch on those points.
_______________________________________________
Mid-Hudson Valley Linux Users Group http://mhvlug.org
http://mhvlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mhvlug
Upcoming Meetings (6pm - 8pm) MHVLS Auditorium
Jan 5 - Building a Community Site with Drupal
Feb 2 - Zimbra
Mar 2 - MHVLUG 8th Anniversary - Show and Tell
