By Spacecat on

I am going to build a site using Drupal. Big part of the site is product catalog. Information about the products is stored in database (db). As I understand, I need to create module for Drupal which will create this catalog. It will take product data from db and insert it on pages of catalog. Also it should provide some navigation inside catalog. Also product keywords should appear in page url. Title tag should be inserted from db.

I would like to use Drupal as a base engine because it will help to integrate the catalog with other parts of site. Hovewer, I am beginer in usage of Drupal and have no experience in writing modules. But I have some experience in writing site engines using php and mysql and could write calalog engine from scrath.

The questions are:
1. Is it possible to make such catalog as Drupal module?
2. Should I use drupal and write new module for catalog? Will it help me to solve the task more easy then writing engine from scratch?
3. If yes, does there exist similar modules which I can use as example? 4. Are there any tutorials which can help to write this module?

Comments

oadaeh’s picture

oadaeh commented

...to the e-commerce module. I have not used it myself, so I cannot speak to it's usefulness:
http://drupal.org/project/ecommerce

rjung’s picture

rjung commented

I don't see the catalog component in the ecommerce CVS repository. Do you have a link?

--R.J.
http://www.electric-escape.net/

--R.J.

nevets’s picture

nevets commented

Making such a catalog module for Drupal should not be difficult though the complete details may make it more of a challange

As for should you use Drupal and would it make the task easier than writing from scratch. I personally recommend using some open source solution over writing from scratch simply because of maintance. You allude to other parts of the site and that additional functionality should play into the answer. So I would chose Drupal over writing something from scratch. But if you are familiar with writing from scratch and have not written a module there is a learning curve which can be a drawback for some people.

There are examples in the hand book, I would suggest starting with the Module developer's guide and looking at the api's (If you are interested in 4.7 look at CVS HEAD)

dropall’s picture

dropall commented

For me, the answer is yes.

What helped me to reach this conclusion is the node example (http://drupaldocs.org/api/head/file/contributions/docs/developer/example...) and the 'views' module.

If you look at these modules, you should come to the same conclusion.

After that you'll have to struggle with other dupal subtilities, like I do now. But I think (hope) that the time spent will pay off in the future.

Spacecat’s picture

Spacecat commented

Thank you guys! You gave me some optimimism to make it with Drupal. At least, I'll try. :)