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By mtconto on
A friend and I built a website that allows users to log running workouts and then run analytics on those workouts. So, for example, if I ran 5 miles, I can go to a calendar, open a form on that day, and enter my workout details (mileage run, time it took, how I felt, shoes I wore, etc).
It also has social aspects to it... so I can share my workout with my "friends" or my "teammates" (a group). It also has the activity stream idea built in, so friends can talk to one another, share workout ideas, etc. I want to have an events section that lists races my users are going to run and then allows others to sign up for those races and discuss their training for them, how they did after the event, etc. The social aspects are wide and varied.
The main draw of the site, though, is the ability to log a workout (manually as noted above, by connecting a GPS Gamin Watch etc). We can even map the run (using Google Maps or the Garmin API) and then run analytics to see how much faster you are on a given route today versus past periods.
Everything was built using cake, php, mysql, and all styles were css.
I have virtually no programming experience, but figured out css well enough over the course of a few days/weeks to be able to style the entire site. Its not gorgeous, but its not bad, either.
My partner is a tech guy and coded all the functionality from scratch (inviting friends, posting on someone profile page, etc. He used Dojo for many of the forms, and saves the data in mysql).
My partner isn't as involved as he once was, and I want to grow my site past the current beta group of users. I am willing to invest the time to learn whatever I need to to bring my "beta" site into a more commercial environment where I can either re-write our existing code or port whatever custom functionality I can over.
Enter Drupal. Because all of the social aspects of the site were done form scratch, they're not clean, efficient, elegant, or particularly user friendly. This led me to Socialengine 4 and ultimately to Drupal 7.
I downloaded Drupal 7 without a problem and then stumbled upon Drupal Commons.
I am a bit confused by the difference? My understanding is that Drupal Commons is basically built on Drupal 6, leveraging OG and some other "social" modules. Well then, can't I just bring in those modules to Drupal 7 and have the same thing?
It looks like the themes and possibly the administrator editing features in Drupal Commons is more aligned with a social networking site as well? If so, this is a big draw for me.
So, can someone explain for what my website is trying to do/does, which would be a greater benefit to me... Drupal 7 or Drupal Commons. If Commons, what do I do now that I have Drupal 7 downloaded (I haven't started working on it yet... that is for this weekend).
Also, outside of the modules, how do I go about building the other functionality I need? For example, how would one go about adding the aforementioned "calendar" where one could click on a given day and add a workout? And then, how would Drupal 7/Commons allow me to share that workout with a set of users (my friends, my team, etc)? Another example... let's say there is a list of races I want to run... how would I create in Drupal a box on my profile page that had all the future races I chose to run (so others can see my race plans), then after the date of the race, give me the ability to post how I did to my friends, my team, or even to a 3rd party site like Facebook? I'm not looking for the actual code to do this, but more the confirmation that "yes (or no), this is very doable and here is what you would need to know to know how to do it..."
Thanks so much for any help anyone can provide.
Comments
I hate to do this, but I want
I hate to do this, but I want to bump this up so someone can help me. I'm surprised no one has an opinion on whether one should use Drupal Commons or Drupal 7 for this project. I downloaded Drupal Commons last night and though the layout is much nicer then anything I've seen in Drupal 7, I found it a lot more confusing.
Thoughts?
_
you probably didn't get a response because it's really a question only you can answer. commons is just a drupal distribution-- everything you can do with drupal you can do with commons and vice versa. Which you choose to start out with is just a matter of personal preference. Seems you already answered the question for yourself anyway.
For what it's worth...
I think you'll find Drupal Commons is a better choice, mostly because it's built on Drupal 6 and therefore more stable and more advanced than Drupal 7. You can't simply collect the modules they used to build Drupal Commons and build it in Drupal 7. The overwhelming majority of modules (especially the complex ones) have not been ported to Drupal 7 yet, and even if they have, they're still pretty buggy.
I learned the hard way. I spent two months trying to make Drupal 7 work, only to scrap it all and start fresh with Drupal 6. I finally stopped having nightmares formatted in PHP error messages.