I'm currently in the process of implementing Drupal as the new foundation of our site. One of the first Drupal based features we would like to introduce is a comprehensive business directory and CCK and Views seem to be perfect candidates for this.
The thing where I get stuck is the fact that we want to have 'business properties' in the system which people can use to quickly search/select and get a quick overview of a business' competences/features.
An example;
The directory is focussed on equine companies. So we have stables, breeders, shops, trainers, etc. For a stable we would like to record properties like:
- Name
- Address
- Website
- Email
- Phone
- Logo
which are common to all companies. Besides that we want the directory to contain:
- Number of stalls
- Number of 20x40m arenas (indoor/outdoor)
- Number of 20x60m arenas (indoor/outdoor)
- Solarium
- Jumping equipment
- Jumping arena
- Cafetaria
- Lockers for riding equipment
- Price/month
- Ridingschool
- Disciplines for ridingschool (dressage, jumping, western, etc)
- Max level for training
For a trainer the following properties are of interest:
- The common properties (name, address, etc)
- Disciplines (dressage, jumping, western, etc)
- Max level for training
- Price/hour
- Own facilities?
- Max travel distance
- Diplomas/certificates
- Available during day/evening/weekend
You get the idea :) Now the big question is how this should be put into CCK. Do we make one content type for every class of businesses? Does that scale? Doesn't the 'create new content' page become a huge mess that way? And what implications does that have on searching?
Or do we keep everything in one content type and specify (in some way) what fields are relevant for what category of businesses?
Or is it possible to create one general 'business' content type with all common properties and all properties that several categories use (like discipline) and add specific fields to groups of categories?
Another matter is scalability, the current site does approximately 1M pages/day so I'd like to keep things light although I don't see any major problems with scalability here.
I would really appreciate some input here. CCK and Views are pretty complex beasts and it looks like it's going to be hell if, after a few months, I discover that I've picked the 'wrong' way to deal with this... I've done quite a bit of research already but it's really hard to see all the implications of the decisions you make if you lack experience with actually using CCK/Views.
Thanks a lot in advance!
Comments
Initial thoughts, off the top
Initial thoughts, off the top of my head...
I'd make one content type for each class of business - stables, breeders, shops, trainers, etc - as you say. I don't think it'll make the "create new content" page unfeasibly long, and it'll simplify the actual content-creation form for each type as you can include only the relevant fields.
I'd use taxonomies for any properties which are standardized and common to multiple business classes (eg discipline, as you suggest - geographical area would also be good).
CCK and Views are pretty complex but I'd say they're the right way to go. I can't comment about the scalability - in addition to the page views, this would be affected by the number of records and whether users are likely to be anonymous (better for cacheing) or logged in.
Would it still be possible to
Would it still be possible to do something like:
'Give me all businesses in all categories in a 50km range from this location' if you have one content type for every class of business?
Seems like I'd have to create a search/view (?) that searches all different business content types in one go?
A view could certainly give
A view could certainly give results across all business types. I don't know about the "in a 50km range" part - I'm sure that's possible with a geolocation module, but I haven't investigated that area at all. I was thinking of the location taxonomy as an alternative to that, eg "show all business types within this district".
Subscribing...
I'm interested to build one as well. Let's share our knowledge together.
Cheers,
yeeloon
Anyone did it?
I am starting a new section of my main site which will be a "Yelp-like" section.
I am still hesitating between doing one content type for each type of business or one general "business" content type with categories for each business type...I can see advantages and inconvenient for both...
I'll decide and start soon and return to tell you what i did and how it worked...In the mean time, I would be very interested in reading about previous experiences...Has anyone actually managed to achieve this? How did you build it?
Thanks
Thierry Heumann
www.thebaysoccer.com
www.myteamsite.net
Personally, I would go for a
Personally, I would go for a standard content type with multiple categories couple with imagefield, gmap + location (not sure if these 2 mapping modules are still active in D6)
Tilt_11, have you got your site up?
This is actually what I decided...
...Just one content type with multiple categories. Some fields vary depending on the type of business but the Conditional fields module can take care of that.
Yeeloon, the site is up (www.thebaysoccer.com) but this part of the site is not existing yet.
I'm starting working on it soon and will post updates here.
If people would like to hire
If people would like to hire a serious Drupal developer to develop a Drupal business directory module that integrates Openlayers support I can get a few thousand dollars towards the project.
Or, if people would like to work with me on developing it, we can create a drupal group and start to layout a development plan.
No need to make a group
There already is one... http://groups.drupal.org/business-directory
Michelle
Thanks Michelle.
Thanks Michelle.
Do you have this business directory modules for drupal 6
Do you have this business directory modules for drupal 6.
We need drupal developer for business directory modules, local drupal business directory. we are still working on development on this site, www.placeitlocal.com no one really have a drupal modules for business directory with business name, business address, business description, business website url, business phone number and etc.... using ajax google maps api.
We would love to have people communicating over this project building a drupal business directory modules that will work for all drupal community : ) contact us placeitlocal@gmail.com,