Before you start

All, I've got a general question I'm sure has been asked many a time: If I use the Drupal core, rather than the CivicSpace distro, am I missing out? Or can I technically add all the modules CivicSpace has?

I don't want the whole CivicSpace, but I don't want to encounter something I'm trying to add to my Drupal 4.6 that is only done for CivicSpace and can't be integrated into my Drupal core.

I'm using Drupal for a groups type system, and want to install modules as appropriate rather than launch into the whole CS and turn off/take out modules as appropriate.

I currently have a site running 4.5.2 and have the taxonomy_image module in place to give me images for my terms (see http://www.patenetlystupid.com for example). I havent had time to keep up with drupal much over the last several months and I was wondering. Does 4.6 incorporate something similar now? So that I no longer need the taxonomy_image module? I've looked around and read the changelog but I dont see it clearly spelled out.

Hello,

My name is Leslie. My website is both content and ecommerce driven. I am considering to use drupal to update my website. Is seems to be a great cms.

Now I heard that drupal has a new shopping cart. HOW great is that!?!

Where can I demo the new drupal shopping cart?

Any and all info would be gratefully accepted.

Yours In Health & Sustainability,
Leslie Gabriel
http://www.WaterCheck.biz
Water Test Kits & Water Filters For The Ecologically Minded

G'day,
I am trying to build an alumni website for a region. Basically, I wanted people to be able to visit the website, register and be able to view the alumni website for their school.
Multi-site (I think) wise, each school will have its own look (theme). A list of schools will be available on the main Site. Users can subscribe to the schools they went to (guess groups for each school - autojoin group when subscribe to that school?). They can share pictures on their school site as well as discuss in a forum (multisite again?).

Ok, I am very new at this and my hosting company offers FANTASTICO installation of Drupal 4.5
Its great since I dont have to do anything...everything is done for me.

Questions...and I am sorry if this is elsewhere...

1. How hard is it to update to 4.6 since Fantasico doesnt have it..and I think I must do it manually- can a newbie do it?

2. Are PHPTemplate Engine hard to use and understand? (See next question for why asked)

We want to set up a site for multiple organizations. Organizations can see common "resource" pages but cannot see the custom pages for another organization. We don't want to duplicate the common pages for each organization.

Each organization will have two groups of users, call them AAA and BBB.

AAA users can make posts (documents and/or discussion board messages) and can view and edit their own posts. They cannot view posts by other AAA users. AAA users can view all posts by BBB users.