Social Network Question (Not asking for modules).

Hi Hardaka,

I'm no Drupal guru, but here's my take on your questions:

Question 1: Contributed modules usually play well together, but not always. Read the modules' descriptions and readmes carefully, then it's trial and error, I'm afraid. However, as a general strategy, keeping the number of contributed modules to a minimum will make things easier.

Questions 2 and 3: Drupal 5.7 is fine and currently offers more modules to choose from. On the other hand, D6 has a bunch of improvements and D5 has a shorter lifespan, which probably means upgrading sooner rather than later (see the Drupal handbook on versions). A fairly basic D5 site shouldn't be too difficult to upgrade, but no guarantees if it's heavily customised and/or uses a lot of contributed modules. (See the upgrade handbook).

Question 4: Many Drupal themes allow the sort of layout you want, including collapsible regions (for dropping a column when not needed) and Drupal's blocks offer the kind of flexibility you need.

Question 5: If you know CSS, you will be to get a handle on theming, but there is a learning curve which involves getting to know a how the Drupal theme system works and little PHP for some customisation (although you will find plenty of PHP snippets on the Drupal site which are a great help). Customising existing themes isn't always as easy as you'd think, so you may find it easier to start with a "blank canvas" like the Zen theme. You might find this video guide to Zen theming useful to get you started.

Question 6: This depends on how ambitious your plans are. Two things I know for sure: Firstly, you won't find a better open source CMS for community-based sites than Drupal. Secondly, you can do some great stuff without programming by just using the core modules, plus CCK and Views. You might want to add Organic Groups for social networking, but as I said above, I'd be selective in what, and how many, contributed modules you add.

The bottom line is Drupal is a powerful CMS and a huge resource, with lots of contributed modules, themes and documentation. There are no shortcuts: you have to do a lot of reading, hands-on learning and trial-and-error. But the rewards are well worthwhile.

Good luck!

I'm working on creating a social networking site (well, playing with the idea right now).

I'm starting with Drupal 5. It's solid, and it works well. There's just too many modules that I'd like to have that aren't ready for Drupal 6 yet. And as for modules, I currently have 18 or so contributed modules - and I'll have to add more. (Some are for the site in general - Pathauto, Token, Poormanscron - and some are user-related (Signature Forum, buddylist, private message.)

As for the design, you control it. Read the documentation in the handbook for Drupal 5 themes. (Admittedly, Drupal 6 makes this easier.)

I'm not a programmer, and you don't need to be. There's a lot of info out there. It just takes getting your hands dirty and sticking with it when it becomes confusing. (I'm trying to figure out Views and Tabs right now... and my head's spinning thinking about it.)

~silverwing

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Land of Midnight | MisguidedThoughts | showcaseCMS

I've made a quasi-social networking site with Drupal that's been online since 2005. Here's my advice to your questions.

1.) I wouldn't think of it as modules = features. Many modules conflict with each other, more queries = more server resources & longer page load time. Also many modules (and Drupal itself) may not match what your trying to achieve 'semanticly'. Do you want 'Communities' instead of 'Organic Groups'? Members instead of users? Don't want 'node' in your URLs? You need to do some programming. You're better off making a single module that adds all (or at least most) of the functionality you want.

2.) I have both Wordpress & Drupal sites. Wordpress is an easier upgrade. I've upgraded through every major revision from 4.something to 6.3. It has never been a walk in the park - especially if you need to modify anything.

3.) Staying at 5.7 would be fine unless there's some serious security flaw identified and you didn't want to patch it yourself.

4.) No problem.

5.) Yes and no. If there's a theme that very close to what you want then yes - you could just modify it. It's probably going to involve some coding to modify the theme's template. If you can modify a Wordpress theme, you'll be just fine with Drupal.

6.) It depends on what you want to achieve. If you really want a custom solution you will need some programming knowledge - or need to know someone who does.

Just to add to the above, one thing to keep in mind is that you may be able to pick and choose from Drupal's 3000+ modules to do everything you are looking to do and then some. Having said that, the details may not be what you envisioned, and that's were the bulk of the work will come in. It's actually possible to build a robust social network in Drupal in a couple days, but getting the details the way you want them may actually take months. If you are willing to compromise a bit, it will accelerate development dramatically, but if you've got a very precise vision of all the details you want, getting it to match perfectly in Drupal will require a great deal of customization, and might be as difficult as starting from scratch in another platform.

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