Before you start

Hi!

I have a question, my question was unanswered at the Joomla forums, so I thought the Drupal forums would be worth a shot.

So, I wish to create a new website where users visit the site and meet a search bar, in this search bar they should be able to search for peoples names, such as Martin, if there is results they'll be taken to Martins profile. In this profile there will be different information about Martin, such as his criminal records.

Hi, I have an issue to solve... I am a Drupal newbie and a Computer science student (but I am pretty good with HTML, CSS, a basic level of PHP) and I am in charge of creating a web site for a night club. The site should be relatively simple:
-several pages (about us, events, photogallery, video). The web site should allow some PR guy add events, photos, videos after everything is set up and functional.
-mailchimp (mailing list button), follow us buttons, contact us form.

Morning,

Having spoken to a friend it would seem Drupal is the way to go for me.

Couple of questions before I install etc.

I am currently in the process of building my site. The pages are coming together well and linking up. I intend on uploading them to the web this week at some point.

Now obviously I can mess around with it etc even when online as to be honest no body knows it's there.

First question would be. Do I have to have all the pages built and working before installing Drupal or can I install it now to get familar with it? Don't want to be taking loads of different things first before doing the basics of building the website.

Secondly, I am wanting to have a login page for people to login and then they have a small profile page with a picture and be able to befriend other users and message them?

Thirdly, I am a keen fisherman and I am going to be holding matches up and down the country. The idea of the site is to be able to put up the places where the matches and meets are going to be and then people can click on the match info and click on an attending button which will update like a live figure list on the main body of the websites. Can this also be done with Drupal and will I need to do any coding etc or can I just install something into Drupal.

On the White House site, claimed to be powered by Drupal, I clearly can see a number of dynamic pages, with different addresses and different layouts. At the same time, in administrative panel of Drupal 7 I can't see such operation as “Add page”, “List of pages” etc. I can see “Basic pages”, which are clearly intended for static content only. For a beginner like me Drupal looks like single-page oriented tool. Can I actually handle pages, their layouts, via administrative panel, or such operations require a web programmer with knowledge of Drupal and/or Apache?

I'm completely new to Drupal but have just completed reading the Drupal for Dummies book (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Drupal-Dummies-Computers-Lynn-Beighley/dp/047055...). My webhosting provides an automated installation of Drupal 6.20 and 7.0 (using Softaculous).

I presently host my site/blog on WordPress and i couldn't make an e-commerce site.i want to make it available for purchasing books online.can i do that? are there any modules available for making it simple.