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By aesedai on
Greetings all!
I'm brand new to Drupal, so I understand I've a learning curve ahead -- especially since I want a site with so much functionality.
I'm sure I'll be back with other questions but after a lot of looking around here and reading, I'm not sure Drupal (with its modules) can already handle the business side of what my site needs.
So here's what I want to do, please let me know which/what already has solutions and what I might need to have custom code developed for.
Hopefully, I'll be able to release anything developed to the entire community. Here goes:
First -- credits. I want the only actual point of purchase to be credits (initally, just with paypal) and these credits used to buy everything else.
Second -- subscriptions. I want to have basic users, standard users and premimum users. Special needed options with subscriptions are that some should come with spending credits, the ability to upload certain types of content, the ability to add a limited/unlimited amount of content, and the ability to pay for others to view/access/download certain content (NOTE ALL SUCH CONTENT IS DIGITAL OR INTANGIBLE FOR NOW).
Side note here -- I'd really like to allow all users the ability to choose their own theme/look
for their pages, and for premimum users to create custom CSS (like wordpress allows), is this feasible?
Third -- Percentage purchases: For the users who have paid for the ability to post pay for access content, the site needs to be able to collect a percentage of the sale (credits) and give the user the rest. I'd also like to allow certain users/roles to accept tips, where again, the site keeps some of the credits used for tipping.
Last but not least -- checkout: premimum users need to be able to request conversion of their credits to cash.
I know I know, someone's likely to tell me I want to much, but nothing ventured, nothing gained!
Any answers I can get about this will be helpful. If I have to hire a developer, I want to know what for, and whether or not they'd just be modifying existing modules.
It -looks- like Drupal could handle all the community functionality I'd like to provide but I'm not sure about the business end. I am the only person involved with this project, and I don't want it to die from my own lack of knowledge.
Thanks for reading!
Maia
Comments
Hi aesedai, Welcome to
Hi aesedai, Welcome to Drupal!
First, you are right. Drupal has a steep learning curve. But stick with it, keep asking questions in the forums and on IRC (http://drupal.org/node/108355) and before long you will have your site you described above.
Here are a few thoughts. If you haven't yet discovered CCK (http://drupal.org/project/cck) and Views (http://drupal.org/project/views), check those out. You will find those two modules view important to you in your Drupal adventures.
On the rest, you need to choose which ecommerce solution you want to use, e-Commerce (http://drupal.org/project/ecommerce) or Ubercart http://drupal.org/project/ubercart). Once you do that you can begin moving forward with your other things that tie into the whole checkout thing. If you decide to go with Ubercart you might check their contrib section (http://www.ubercart.org/contrib) to see small modules for the Ubercart solution.
More specific:
(1) credits: UserPoints: http://drupal.org/project/userpoints
-- Ubercart + Userpoints + Ubercart UserPoints Integration (http://www.ubercart.org/contrib/1700) is one solution available to handle the concept of points / credits
(2) subscriptions: Off the top of my head I am not entirely sure what modules would be needed to implement this but it seems one of the "roles" modules will be needed as well as an ecommerce solution. You might find building or paying a freelancer or service provider (http://drupal.org/paid-services) to build a module for you more cost effective than piecing a solution together (that may not meet all your needs).
(3) percantages: you might find Userpoints useful here. Userpoints handles credits etc. Before moving forward with this you will need to know which ecommerce solution you want and begin to plan out precisely how you want your features to work. Chances are, you can get this feature and (2) to work piecing modules together and doing some custom coding snippets here and there, but from what I see in your request you will benefit making a module to do exactly what you want it to do.
(4) theme switcher: http://drupal.org/project/role_theme_switcher
I have found that thinking up cool ideas is pretty easy. It is much harder planning and organizing those cool ideas into a product / website. If you can layout a very specific plan you will find the rest gets much easier. Once you have more details begin asking around the community smaller and more detailed questions, you will have better luck getting answers quicker. Be sure to use the Ubercart.org forums too (if you decide to use ubercart).
Good luck with your project!
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Elvis McNeely
Drupal services: http://www.elvisblogs.org/drupal
Thanks!
Thanks for getting back to me Elvis!
You are completely correct in what you said about ideas! In late April, early May, the idea for my "perfect" website hit me, the more i thought about it, the more I could see it.
Then reality came visiting -- how in the world would I build it?
Well, since then I've discovered Drupal (with it's books and forums and various blogs!!), and made the choice to work with Drupal 6 when I saw three important modules where now ready for it.
You've answered the question that worried me the most by saying I'd likely need a custom solution for the ecommerce part. Now that I know, I can get over it and figure it out.
Thanks so much for your help! I'm happy I found the community. It's a well kept secret!
Maia
Image Upload
Hey there Elvis...im using the drupal 5 module. Is Drupal 6 better? I am starting to "attempt" to upload images but they are not showing anymore (despite initially showing). For some reason, when i try to edit and upload again, it shows the box but the image wont appear, even when i right click to "show picture". What is a solution to this please?
@kaye10, Drupal 6 is better,
@kaye10,
Drupal 6 is better, IMO. Some modules have not updated their documentation but other than that I have found D6 very pleasant to work with and very fast. Many of the modules I/Client uses are not converted to D6 but that will come in time.
As for your image problem, it seems your files directory, or whatever you named that directory, permissions have changed. You said you were able to see the images then now can't. A number of things could have caused that. Double check your premissions, pretty sure that is the problem here. FTP and check the directories in files/* for your images, to make sure they are there.
Regards
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Elvis McNeely
Drupal services: http://www.elvisblogs.org/drupal
Drupal 6
Elvis thx...how do i change my ENTIRE website setting from drupal 5 to Drupal6..whcih means my e-commerce etc..everything?
@kaye10, That would be
@kaye10,
That would be called upgrading, check out the "Upgrading Drupal 5 to Drupal 6" documentation. If you started from scratch recently and don't have much content in place, you might consider just starting over. That would be my choice. Whatever you do, make sure you backup both all drupal files and database. VERY IMPORTANT!
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Elvis McNeely
Drupal services: http://www.elvisblogs.org/drupal
Hey thxman..appreciate the
Hey thxman..appreciate the response
.
Make sure your modules are ready first... I don't think either ecommerce or ubercart are ready for D6, yet.
Michelle
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See my Drupal articles and tutorials or come check out life in the Coulee Region.
MIchelle, since ecommerce is
MIchelle, since ecommerce is not supported with Drupal 6, then ill stick to 5...im having problems upload images for my products..ive tried so many ways to solve this...what do u recommend? i tried going to file system where the path is and temp files..
Elvis, im having issues
Elvis, im having issues uploading images for my products..the images dont appear even after numerous attempts to upload...what do u suggest bro