By DomaNitro on

Little background on me. I work in a small company we distribute educational products to schools. I have some PHP and mysql background

Any way over the last 3 years we developed in house a web application with PHP and mysql and we are very satisfied with it. The purpose of the software is tracking of samples sent to customers, invoices issued, delays and so on. The application is not sophisticated in anyway just simple forms and list.
The problem we are facing is we want to expand the application add more functionality and integrate some community stuff (sharing, calendaring, publishing and so on ) after investigation we think that drupal is the way to go as a very strong framework to contain the application.
I’ve been reading forever for the last 1 week and playing around still did not get the hang if it.
My problem is I want to prove that the concept works before actually committing more time and money into the project.
A small example or something simple like

* Users logs in if he has permission he can either edit or view
* user select customer and product and submit in that case customer received the item.
* Users select items that are submitted and can return it
* User can see all items submitted and all items return sorted by either

The tables would like something like this
* Table: customer (id, title)
* Table:item (id, code, title)
* Table: customer_sample(id, customer_id, item_id, transaction, date)

I went through a lot of docs and guides but most of them talk about blocks, node and view . I don’t seem to understand how that would relate to the above for ex. I

I would be grateful if you can direct me on where to start or the idea of how you would implement the above for ex. or assist me in anyway

Thank you in advance

⋅ Categories: Drupal 5.x

Comments

vm’s picture

vm commented

views is a custom query writer that helps you create views. views are lists, either in pages or in blocks.
blocks are what you see on the right hand side of drupal.org. This presentation areas where you present a user with "stuff".
nodes, are content. most everything in drupal is stored as a node.

for the tables you seek, I'd consider CCK which will allow you to create a "customer" content type where by you can adds your fields and stored them in the drupal db in a drupal friendly way.

_____________________________________________________________________
My posts & comments are usually dripping with sarcasm.
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DomaNitro’s picture

DomaNitro commented

Thank you

To keep the model less hectic in porting and redesigning the entire system and going into testing phases and so on. I would like to go into the a road where i would keep my date base schema and feel of the application just port the forms into menu/blocks/contant area (if thats possible) and avoid using nodes and views.

Cheers

coupet’s picture

coupet commented

Create custom module with existing schema, then import data into tables defined in custom module.
Use FormAPI to create forms
Use Database abstraction layer insert/update/query data
Use Functions and templates that present output to the user.

Drupal developer's documentation http://api.drupal.org/

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Darly

DomaNitro’s picture

DomaNitro commented

Thanks I will give it a deeper look.

Is there any module that does that.

In other words is there a module name that creates forms and has its own db. It does not matter the functinailty. Just to see the code so I could get started.

Any examples would be great

Thanks

coupet’s picture

coupet commented

node_example.module
http://api.drupal.org/api/file/developer/examples/node_example.module

Announcements
http://drupal.org/project/announcements

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Darly