By ediehl on

Dev House Boston (http://upcoming.org/event/126815/) is a brand new event giving programmers and designers the opportunity to hack out something cool, in a day, and present it to lots of interested people. And at the end of the day -- whether you've got working code, page mockups, or just an elevator pitch -- you'll share your work with a group of people who know where you're coming from.

I would like to invite Drupal developers to use the opportunity and work together on a SIMPLE Contact Management module. CiviCRM is great but seems to be overkill for many situations. Maybe we can use as a starting concept Touchbase, a 15 year old program for the Macintosh. Touchbase's main strength was its simplicity. Fore more info email: diehl at alum.mit.edu.

Comments

alanburke’s picture

alanburke commented

I'm on the lookout for a simple contact module.

I might go with something handbuilt with CCK & Views, but a simple address book module I could extend would be another method.

Did this event produce any woirking code that I could have a look at?

Later
Alan

Drupal development and themeing, Galway, Ireland

ediehl’s picture

ediehl commented

At the Drupal User Group meeting in Cambridge, MA on Deceber 11, 2007 I presented my recent work on the topic. From the introduction:
"
Context: I am in the process of developing a Contact Managment System. Using a large system like CiviCRM seemed overkill and integrating it tightly into Drupal seemed a bit complex. On the other end of the spectrum, a system that relies solely on node_reference CCK types, seemed too limited. I am presenting a middle-ground solution that offers a flexible solution within a modest scope (module has 700 lines of source code).

Project: To develop a system that grows with one's understanding of the organization. Out-of-the-box, Drupal offers 50% of the solution. If the current mental model pictures the organization as a network of persons and groups, one can create 2 node types (named 'person' and 'group') and populate the model with instances of persons and of groups. Later on one might discover, that the model of the organization needs to be expanded by adding nodes of the type 'product' and 'event'. Easy done as said: CCK allows to create new types as needed.

But now to the other 50% of the challenge. How do the nodes relate to each other? How can I express...
...that person Fred is a_member_of group Salesforce since 1989 and that he became_VP_of group Salesforce in 1995.
...that person Fred is a_co-worker_of person John and a_supervisor_of person Bill.
There are no limits to how the model of the organization might evolve and what might become relevant: For example, I also might want to track...
...that Fred bought product DrupalBook on Oct. 17, 2005 for $19.95 and bought product LearnToProgramBook.

Proposed solution: Similar to the node table that allows us to keep track of new node instances, we need a transaction table that allows us to keep track of new instances that relate 2 nodes to each other. I have developed a prototype to demonstrate how such a solution might work. I explain with an example...
"

To read more, view complete handout at:
http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dhrcmt62_76fs22cp

Any comments or suggestions welcome.
Ernst Diehl