Before you start

Hi,

My first post here. I have about 6+ years using Joomla and I am considering Drupal for a project. I think I have a pretty good grasp on how CMS's work and the basic principals. I have created my own templates and do a bit of PHP programming. I am fairly confident I would be able to set up Drupal configure it the way I would like.

My concerns and what I would really appreciate the Drupal community feedback on, are on how well Drupal might meet these requirements:

1) How is each content language implemented in Drupal?

a) Is each language content version stored in it's own table with a functionality that links and creates "parity" between the language versions of the content, or is all the different language content stored inside language tags?

b) content stored in their own tables can easily have a version of the content with it's appropriate process in my experience. layout for the language. Putting content between tags makes that a cumbersome.

2) All the sites I create must be multilingual with at least two languages: English and Japanese. We do all our translation manually. My concern is detection and translation management for non technical "assistants".

a) Can Drupal detect the language of the browser ( or at least try)?

Can someone recommend the best Drupal Version to start my web site? I don't want to spend all my time creating a new site only to turn around and upgrade a few weeks or months later. I haven't paid for a hosting site yet but will choose one that will give me the versions of SQL, PHP, and Drupal that work together.

Second question. Is there any drawbacks to using Microsoft SQL Server? Are there any core or Contributing Modules that will not work with MS SQL?

I'm taking on a new role at my company's website, which is Drupal 6x.

Any suggestions for the best desktop manual?

I'd like to use it as a reference, and also to start learning the vocabulary.

Hello,
I have been "googleing" like mad to try and find the best answers for what I need but no luck as of yet.

I am about to start a task and am trying to decide whether Drupal is the correct option to go with; I have to create an Inventory Management website - so people are able to manage who has what equipment.

So users with certain Priveledges will be able to create "products" within the categories (guessing views & CCk will do this fine?)

I also need it to be organised into certain departments, so they can see what equipment is where. - yet again I'm guessing views would do this perfectly.

Another thing I need to include is when creating the "products" there needs to be a dropdown with information from an external database e.g. a database with Departments would populate the department drop down. (There will be a lot more information otherwise I would use vocabularies - and the information will be dynamically updated to that database e.g when a new employee starts)

also when the products information is populated I would like to be able to click on the owners name (may not have a login to the website but has been selected via the Drop down) and view all the items he has.

is this all a bit far fetched? if not what would be the best modules to use etc?

there are other features it requires but my mind has gone blank.

thanks in advance,
Josh

So I am fairly new to Drupal, having just been introduced to it by way of a job position. While looking through the documentation and learning the platform for work, I've decided to make use of it for a project I've had stewing for years. However, I need some advice on the best way to set things up data-wise before I start.

I'm planning to go with Drupal 7.x and hopefully will integrate MongoDB into the mix - the site I am going to build has pretty much all dynamic pages, users logging in and potentially a lot of queries. I figured it'd be best to integrate MongoDB in from the start to provide easier scalability in the future.

What I need advice on:
1. What's the best way to set up entities to optimize for future queries? I read somewhere that the properties should be kept few and the majority of the data should go into fields - is this true? What data is best to keep in the main entity table in properties as opposed to stored in fields with MongoDB?
2. Is there any benefit to having bundles or is it just as fine to have all entities? I keep thinking of bundles in the way of OOP inheritance - do bundles inherit properties from their parent entity?

And onto some examples of what I'm trying to do.

I plan to have Users owning/creating animals of different species.

Hi guys,

I'm designing a solution for a non-profit organization that needs multiple sites to manage different areas of interest with this requirements:

1. The websites have to be different, with similar template, but distinct as they are going to be separate branches of the same organization.
2. They have to share the same user database even if the same user might have different roles on the different websites (no role on one website, contributor on another etc).
3. They are going to have different domain names even if they are going to be hosted on the same VPS.
4. The first website needs to manage aggregated news and fresh news.
5. The second website is going to be a social network.
6. There is going to be a third website that should basically allow users to upload video.
7. Possibly there should be a main topbar to switch from one site to the other, but this is totally another story...

What's the most suitable solution?
I was thinking about a multisite installation of drupal with separate database and shared user table (btw, is there any updated giudeline about this?).