By Dee_Heath on

I currently have a wordpress blog called www.urban-Lyfe.com which is geared towards providing an extra platform for models and music artists on their grind. By January 2015, I plan on turning my blog into a full fledge social network. There are quite a bit of features that I will like to include in my site that will make it fun and appealing to my members. My question is; If Drupal does not have every feature that I need, will Drupal allow me to have extra features added through an outside developer of my choosing?

Thank you in advance,

Dee Heath

Comments

nevets’s picture

nevets commented

It really depends, in the end you probably can, though sometimes not worth the expense.

As for an "outside developer of my choosing". You are going to want a Drupal developer (someone who has worked with Drupal for a while) but not every developer will be able to implement every feature you might want.

In the end, the actual answer will depend on the feature/functionality you are after.

bander2’s picture

bander2 commented

As nevets said, you have to choose a Drupal developer. There are many, so that should not be a problem.

The answer to your question is "yes" but that does not mean that Drupal is the right solution. Developing new functionality on Drupal is not as easy as it is with a PHP framework like say Symfony, Laravel or Yii. But you get so much for free from Drupal. So, it kinda depends on how much functionality we are talking about. If Drupal is going to provide you with 85% of what you need, then it is a good choice. If it's 50% then maybe not, because that other 50% is going to cost you more than doing the whole thing with a framework.

When you are looking at the functionality you need, don't forget to factor in all the stuff you get from Drupal. Don't take anything for granted. For instance, Drupal gives you a first rate security and user management system right out of the box. That is a big development task with a framework. Everything you would do with Views would be a development task with a framework.

So, look at your required functionality and the functionality you are likely to need in the future and see what you can get from Drupal from core and modules. If there is a gap, know that you can fill it with development, but if it's a big gap, it might not be worth it. Also keep in mind that development on an active site never stops. It is OK if your needs change and you have a technology change down the road. When that happens, it does not mean you made a bad choice.

- Brendan

Dee_Heath’s picture

Dee_Heath commented

The feedback is sooooo greatly appreciated by the both of you. Not to give away my ideas but a couple that I had in mind to adding to my site through a developer are;

1) Have every member set up a default welcome video which would automatically appear in the inbox or guestbook of whomever they accept as a friend/fan.

2) Similar to the OLD myspace, I want members to "Pimp Their Pages" with may custom layouts that I will like them to choose from or they can simply create their own.

Does this seem possible? Sorry if this is a dumb question but other than my ambition and a couple of dollars, I am learning as I go.

boban_dj’s picture

boban_dj commented

Hi, with Drupal you have an excellent cms for user managment. You can style everything also according to user and even in different context.
The most valuable module in Drupal, i think is Views, you can make any view based on a users login or preference. With the Rules module you can set up different criteria when users login.
It really depends what you need, then you seek the proper modules or approach, and theme the thing. It will be much more extendable then Wordpress and much cheaper then make something from scratch.

Boban_dj