I'm considering moving to Drupal from my custom PHP driven setup. One of the things i've been trying to add to my site is an industrial scale collection database/trade facility. It's about 1/3 done, and i'm trying to decide if i should just scrap it and implement it as a module in Drupal, so it might benefit others, and in turn benefit from the other modules that exist. My questions at this point are many:
- Does something like this already exist?
- Is the learning curve to begin to do something within Drupal steep?
- Is this kind of thing best implemented as a single module, or interacting modules?
- Is this even likely to be used by anyone else?
I'm sure i'll think of more questions soon.
FYI, the type of collection in question is a plant collection, specifically a carnivorous plant grow list (i'm webmaster for http://NECPS.org ). It would need to have multiple users, use a hierarchical arrangement of collection item types (ie genus/species/(mother x father parent)/etc), have special users able to modify the plant catalog lists, have a facility for making journal entries attached to a specific plant, a trade listing that is searchable, and a facility for proposing and making trades from the lists of different users. Among other things. As i said, the logic and data (although 2/3 coherent in my head -- at least at one point) is about 1/3 implemented, but the interface is lagging because it's so meticulous to do each editing form manually. The stuff that is currently accessible to the user can be seen by clicking on trade in the menu of the above link. I imagine this would be pretty adaptable to most types of collections with a little careful generalization in implementation.
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