By mattyoung on

I need to create a business directory:

- each business has category and a subcategory, I plan to use taxonomy here.
- each business has logo, address, phone, web, email, I plan to use CCK to create business content type with the necessary fields.

But I am stumped on how to do my display part:

- I need to support browsing business alphabetically under all or in a category, then have dropdown box to limit within a subcategory
- On the directory page, show logo, address etc like this:

   [Logo]
   ABC Business
   123 Elm Street
   Springfield, OH 123456
   Tel: 123-456-7890
   Fax: 123-456-7890
   Email: abe@abc.com
   Web: www.abcxyz.com
   [detail link] [direction link]

- click on [detail link] pop up a box showing detail info about the business
- click on direction link show a google map, I would like to stay within my site and not go to google (possible?)

If I use view, can I do my own formating for each record?

- quick jumps A to Z to directly jump to first character of the business
- search business by name or some field in the listing

Any suggestion on how to go about doing the display part?

Also, I need to implement a "Register a business" web form where user can enter their business info. This is forwarded to the admin for approval, once approve, the info goes into the listing.

Thank you for your help.

⋅ Categories: Drupal 6.x

Comments

alliax’s picture

alliax commented

you need to look into at least 2 more modules, VIEWS to make lists and CONTENT TEMPLATE (also called CONTEMPLATE) to control how your CCK nodes will be displayed when full page (not list of teasers nodes).

WorldFallz’s picture

WorldFallz commented

All easily done with drupal. Make a content type "business" or "listing" or whatever you want to call it, include any cck fields you need for the types of data you want it to hold. Views has an a-z type view it provides by default and it's fully customizable and themable if you need to change things around. You can use views exposed filters to provide the drop downs for sorting/searching. The "register a business" form would simply be the "create content" link for the "business" content type. If you want to tie the business listing to a particular user, you can use content_profile. For moderating content you can use the modr8 module.

===
"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." -- Lao Tzu
"God helps those who help themselves." -- Benjamin Franklin
"Search is your best friend." -- Worldfallz

mattyoung’s picture

mattyoung commented

You've given me enough pointers to get going. Thanks!

>You can use views exposed filters to provide the drop downs for sorting/searching

How does this work? Can you point me to some documentation? I only know how to use the view UI to define page/block, I don't know anything else about it.

>Views has an a-z type view it provides by default and it's fully customizable and themable if you need to change things around.

This is music to my ear :) Can you point me to some documentation of this? If I can fully customize the format without involving the contemplate module would be great.

Do you know how I can work the [detail link] to provide detail popup? You know maybe some AJAX rigamarole?

Do you know how I can do the google map to show location base on the address?

Thank you very much!

dman’s picture

dman commented

Here's a tip.
When someone says that a feature is available, but doesn't write up a whole heap of step-by-step instructions for you, that is your cue to experiment with the concept of 'searching'.
In the 'search downloads' box, I entered alphabetical view.
It worked.
It doesn't always, but it's the place to start.

Now you try.

Also, following up one helpful answer with several more larger, off-topic questions is tiring to the folk that help out in the forums. It just looks needy, and is discouraging.
It's like giving a dollar to a beggar, and then finding that they follow you home looking for more. Don't be that guy.

.dan.
if you are asking a question you think should be documented, please provide a link to the handbook where you think the answer should be found.
| http://www.coders.co.nz/ |

.dan. is the New Zealand Drupal Developer working on Government Web Standards

STL_Realtor’s picture

STL_Realtor commented

did you ever get the directory all figured out? do you have a link to the final product? I need something similar to this too, and cannot do any of the drupal coding. are you willing to let me pay you to set one up for me? (pending i like your final product)

St. Louis Real Estate

askandlearn’s picture

askandlearn commented

My first instinct was CCK for sure.

But then I wondered if Civicrm might be a good choice (http://civicrm.org). It's got all the address and phone fields set up already, integration with Google Maps, email integration. I notice the new version of civicrm is coming out next week.

Has anyone built a directory with Civicrm? My understanding is that you can expose some fields to the public and keep others private, does anyone know if that is true?

wqr786’s picture

wqr786 commented

I don't think it's a good choice to go for CiviCRM as a b2b portal.

CiviCRM is much related to contact management and activity tracking, a more of a CRM, rather than B2B.

In my opinion, not much customizations would be required if we use Views, CCK, and Panels for B2B portal. The major parts would be I guess the Theming, otherwise we can utilize many of the modules already made available by Drupal community, and can utilize them for a B2b portal without having to do much development.

But ofcourse, there might be limitations in using generic ways. But if the desired results are like 95% done according to needs, then I guess its easy to compromise 5% if we're getting things done faster and up to satisfaction.

These are my personal thoughts. I would like to hear others suggestions as well.