By PHP_Idiot on

Hi folks,

I have an existing site www.gbpokerclub.co.uk which I have built myself, I'm a self taught question asking noob, but with the help of various forums I have the site as I want it (mostly!).

I want to transfer the site into drupal for several reasons, namely content management, security, scalability etc. However, I want to stick to the design theme I already have, which from what I gather so far means building my own theme.
My main concerns are:

  1. Can I still run all my league tables and results scripts as they currently are?
  2. Is it feasible to run this sort of site with Drupal
  3. Is it possible to 'import' the existing site into Drupal, or is it better to rebuild from scratch?
  4. Where is the best source for information / tutorials for noobs like me?

I know this isn't going to be something I can do in a weekend, but I'm prepared to put the learning it to make it happen, if it's the appropriate solution!

I'd be very grateful for any comments / advice you guys can offer.
Cheers

⋅ Categories: Drupal 7.x

Comments

john_b’s picture

john_b commented

1. Yes. But generally it is not a good idea. Mixing non-Drupal-like code and structures with Drupal is often done, but is usually seen as bad practice because it compromises security, it makes integration harder, and it it can be a headache for maintenance.
2. Yes.
3. You will build a Drupal site from scratch. You can import content in principle, once you get your head round how your data can be mapped to Drupal data structures. Migrate module (or Feeds module) may help.
4. Since you are a developer already, the Documentation tab at the top of this site, plus api.drupal.org. There are training books and videos too some of which you will probably use, e.g. the Apress books Deveinitive Guide to drupal and Pro Drupal Development. You also need to learn Views module.

Digit Professionals specialising in Drupal, WordPress & CiviCRM support for publishers in non-profit and related sectors

PHP_Idiot’s picture

PHP_Idiot commented

Thanks for your reply John,

Can you expand slightly on point 1 though? As these scripts are currently the core element of the site they are essential. Are you suggesting then that there is a way to achieve the same end results to users, but that to favor security and maintenance they should be implemented in a different way within the drupal framework?

If that is the case can you point me in the right direction?

I had initially assumed that there would be a way to implement existing code within a given Node, but I'm still getting my head around the jargon and structure of drupal, so advice is always welcome :)

john_b’s picture

john_b commented

There is. If you enable PHP filter module (included in Drupal core) you can drop PHP into a node (or elsewhere) and it will work. This is bad practice because
1. you end up withe code in the database instead of files, which is untidy;
2. enabling PHP filter is potentially a horrible security hole and besides makes it easier to crash your site accidentally (security is an advanced topic, I am no expert, read the book Cracking Drupal to know more, and see other presentations by its author, greggles on d.o, and see some good points on reasons not to use the PHP Filter in this discussion http://drupal.stackexchange.com/questions/2509/what-are-the-downsides-of...).
3. Regardless of whether code is in file or in database using PHP filter, good Drupal code (which is more secure and less likely to give maintenance headaches, where apprpriate uses Drupal's caching, and is better practice for many reasons) uses the Drupal APIs. So for example you do not write raw sql queries, but you use the Drupal database abstraction layer (there are blog posts about this, but for one outline of what this looks like, go direct to the Drupal API documentation: http://api.drupal.org/api/drupal/includes!database!database.inc/group/da...). There are several other key APIs built into Drupal core.

Digit Professionals specialising in Drupal, WordPress & CiviCRM support for publishers in non-profit and related sectors

PHP_Idiot’s picture

PHP_Idiot commented

Thanks a lot for all the extra detail John, the links look really usefull so it's time for me to learn about Drupals APIs then and start experimenting.