By obsideo on

Hello Drupal Community!

After days of due diligence, I have made a decision to commit to using Drupal for a social networking site. I am also a Joomla user (great webware but weak in social networking) and it has served me well in making a good information website.

I have read many posts on social networking sites on this forum and perhaps I may have missed some posts on starting a social networking from ground zero.

My questions are:

Which Drupal version should I start out with?
What are the key modules for a social networking?
Is it necessary to change the default theme or theme engines?
And if so what is the suggestible course of action?
How can I work smarter in development and not harder? (avoiding insomnia....)

I'm looking forward to establishing a long term relationship with this great community!

Thanks!

Comments

Jeff Burnz’s picture

Jeff Burnz commented

Which Drupal version should I start out with?
5.1

What are the key modules for a social networking?
You'll have to decide that one, but I'd be thinking - blog, forum, profile, comment, taxonomy (all in core)..

Is it necessary to change the default theme or theme engines?
Nope.

How can I work smarter in development and not harder? (avoiding insomnia....)
Buy a Drupal developers book, there are several - Pro Drupal Development is new (thus up to date), but there are others as well.

Pimp your Drupal 8 Toolbar - make it badass.
Adaptivetheme - theming system for people who don't code.
obsideo’s picture

obsideo commented

Thanks for replying!

4cornersusa.com’s picture

4cornersusa.com commented

HI, It is still a learning process. Please consider offering a writeup/case study for your site when you are finished.

I am currently developing a community site / social networking site myself. Some modules that have not been mentioned yet are OG - organic groups, and civicrm. both of these may offer some social networking features you might be looking for.

I concur that version 5.x is the version to start with.

regards,
T.

obsideo’s picture

obsideo commented

>>Please consider offering a writeup/case study for your site when you are finished.
I should would like too.

Currently I am still in project planning. The conceptualization process is difficult because I have no experience in PHP/Drupal and coding (just minor HTML) - although I like steep learning curves (its an adventure). Although Joomla has served me well, it cannot venture in social sites as well as Drupal can. However the theme of using modules and interacting with an opensource community that cares assures continuing interest.

Thanks for the suggestions on that modules to use.