Before you start

Hello:

I work with an environmental consulting firm that is 2 years old. I think we are in dire need of a database / CMS system to unite all of our data in a single place.

Could someone discuss pros/cons with using Drupal as a frontend for MySQL to organize our files, projects, data, calendars, etc..

Thanks,

Counsel

Where can I get a recommended setup instructions on Apache, PHP, MySQL, etc. so they are properly configured for a safe and secure base for Drupal to sit on top of? I'm using XAMPP today, but I'm not sure how production worthy it is. The XAMPP site makes a big deal about not being for production sites.

Jim A.

I'm hoping to set up Drupal for our company intranet but have hit a snag when trying to gett everything installed. We've got a servers that is already running MySQL for another program so I was hoping to use that. I've managed to install Apache and PHP onto it and just needed to create a new database for Drupal on the exisiting install of MySQL.

Drupal has succeeded in splitting my head wide open. Every time I think I have a grasp on anything, there's some new approach that has been implemented, lauded as infinitely better than the original - so I dig and I read and I try to understand... but I end up with my head bursting wide open.

And the problem isn't so much that I can't get a handle on things - but that, if I'm to build a community based on drupal, how in the heck are my members ever to understand how things work? I'm really scared that they'll feel as lost as I do and just give up.

So I thought maybe I'd offer up what it is I'm trying to accomplish, and maybe someone might help me to at least get started in the right direction.

Of primary importance is that users with little to no experience can create and share content (video, audio, text, graphics) and meet others who share their interests. I don't really care how difficult it is for ME to set up Drupal to create this environment - but it absolutely must be simplistic for the end user.

Managing Content

In my opinion, content is absolutely worthless unless it can easily be shared with others. For instance, if a new user writes a humorous blog entry, they should be able to easily identify it as "humor", then be instantly rewarded for their effort by having their work instantly appear in the "latest humor" section of the site, for all to see. Other members should then be able to rate that humor - so that after the entry falls from the first page, it's easy to find in a "Best of" section (for the week, the month, the year, etc.) And I'd like for the same method to apply to audio (with different categories), video (with different categories), pictures (with different categories), artwork (with different categories), etc. I'd like for all members to have an equal opportunity to share their work with everyone else.

Hello all :0)

Pls excuse the newbieness but we all have to start somewhere! (pls be gentle =)

I am about to embark on porting a nasty proprietary .NET/asp based site to a nice free open source technology and Drupal is top of my list to do this so far. However, before I go too far down this route I could do with finding out a bit more about the workings of the forum module, specifically the the language it is written in (php?) database used to run it (mysql??) and the format of the records in it.

Please can somebody point me to the forum modules developers site/code, or indeed any site/document that will explain the underlying tech so I can guage how much work it will be? Cheers! :-)

For anyone further concerned with the context..

The site is a communty/charity site, quite well suited to Drupal in most ways, however.. The core of the site is it's forum which has been running/growing for over 5 years! It is really old fashioned and ugly but despite my discouragement the site owners REALLY want to keep the format as it is (fully expanded threads, no topic containers, virtually no graphics) so I'm going to need to downgrade the forum module and port over thousands of (searchable) posts from yesteryear!..

I am working with a good coder who's confident he can port the posts as long as the forum is based on a SQL database.. Hacking the forum interface we're more sketchy about! Has anyone here tried anything similar.. how much of a nightmare was it/do you think that will be?

I realize the drupal cvs package is updated daily from HEAD, but is there an easier way to download drupal HEAD (or sandbox modules) other than clicking each file and then clicking download? I tried searching on this and couldn't find anything...

cheers...