Hello everyone,
I plan to develop an online directory of a city, with a listing for every businesses like Doctors, Lawyers, CAs, Plumbers, Banks, Schools, Real Estate Agents, Salons, Hotels/Restaurants, Electronic Goods Dealers etc. It is not a B2B, only the Admin will have rights to add new businesses in the website.
I thought of some options, and realized that having multiple types of business needs a strong plan for application architecture. One of the challenges is to define fields for each category. For example, Electronic Goods Dealers will select the name of companies whose products are available in their shop while doctors will mention visiting hours of clinic etc. So, one option is that a sub-form appears for each selected category-sub-category.
I am listing options which I have in my mind to achieve this:
Option 1: Using CCK module, different nodes are made for different kind of listings. For example, a node (doctors) is defined for adding new doctors, a node (school) is made for adding schools etc. Each node will have its sub-categories. Different fields are added for that type of node and everything is simple. We can use views to display the content etc.
Option 2: Using CCK module, a node called listing is made. Using vocabulary Index module, category and sub-categories are assigned to the listing. Using Conditional Fields module, different fields can be made displayed for each node type (depending on the category of business). For example, in doctors category, I need visiting hours field, for Electronic Goods Dealers, I need Brands or Product Attributes, and so on.
All this I am stating without giving it a try. I think Option 1 is not very good. Reason is lots of duplication is not good and hence it is not an optimized solution. Any comments on these two solutions are welcome. Also, any other options to achieve this are welcome too. :)
Many thanks
Shena
Comments
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I would go with #2. I started with #1 on my site and it quickly became a PITA.
Michelle
Thanks for responding
Thanks for responding Michelle. Would you like to comment on the selection of modules etc. Since it is huge project and I dont want to some blunder in planning which make me lost in middle of project. :)
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It's been a couple of years since I attempted to make a business directory and I'm afraid my module advice would be out of date.
Michelle
I would go with #2
I just started working on this too but i am not a programmer. I am going to be slower then you but i will keep you in the loop and suggest and help in whatever way possible to make this project successful.
Do also consider making it so Business can add there products and services they offer because I just stumbled on this issue. So think about if business listing will share the same category (vocabulary) with products or will products have separate category (vocabulary).
Goodluck shenagarg
2 is the "right" way -
2 is the "right" way - listing is like an article with tags (businesses)
drupal+me: jeweler portfolio
Drupal 6 or 7
I have been doing a lot of searching on this topic and have seen lots of posts recommending certain modules and configurations. However I'm coming to a conclusion (rightly or wrongly) that I might be better using D6 than D7, would I be right?
I want to create a searchable business directory with some location features (GMAPS) and possibly ratings. A lot of the recommended module don't seem to have been ported to D7 yet, and don't seem to be on the horizon either.
Am I right in my assumption that D6 may be a better choice than D7?
Thanks.
P.S. Michelle, everywhere I read seems to have your footprints all over it ;-)
D6 pros: 1. Brighter
D6 pros:
1. Brighter present
2. More stable/mature
3. More performance oriented tweaks and proven modules
4. More documented how-to's
D7 pros:
2. Brighter future
3. some of the D7 modules combine power of similar D6 + helper modules, built to do the same task as stand alone D7 version.
4. some of the modules features are done in much much better than older versions also, more new concepts and directions to choose
if possible I would go D7
drupal+me: jeweler portfolio
Hi Shena, I am planning to
Hi Shena,
I am planning to create a buiseness directory B2B.
Customers will be able to register and setup their account/ profile on their own.
I was thinking to use those two module you mention on #2 and a couple of others like content profile module and advance profile kit module or similar.
Actually this is something that I have never done before and it 's kind of huge to me.
So...I 'll keep you updated if I find something usefull.
Can we post here issues or queries regarding this project?
Thanks
Funky
Sure Funky. My project is not
Sure Funky. My project is not for B2B users; only admin will add new listings so there will be few differences but we can discuss our findings and queries here for sure. :)
Hi shenagarg and the rest, It
Hi shenagarg and the rest,
It won't make much of a difference since content profile module can implement users as nodes (or something-still haven't tried it)
I skiped vocabulaty index module(to be honest I did not give it a chance) and I tried content taxonomy which collaborates as well with conditional fields module.
I created a new content type and added a taxonomy field. I created some fields that are cummon in all buiseness (like site, email etc.).Then I created several field (buiseness) groups which contain fields according to the type of the buiseness (hotel, bar, water sports and so on). I set each one of these groups to depend on the selection of the taxonomy term(one the taxonomy field I have created).
I am still building...
Feel free to ask any questions or make suggestions!
funkycamel
SBE Guide: Business Directory
Has anybody gone over the SBE Guide: Business Directory e-book which walks through the development of a regional organic business directory? It looks promising but it costs $39.99 for only 100 pages worth of book. It was originally part of the Site Building Extravaganza training program which included a number of very useful hands-on site building demonstrations but registration is closed and the site doesn't say anything about when they're conducting another class or even how much it costs. I've been going through Johan Falk's Drupal training screencasts and have a pretty firm grasp of Drupal, but building a searchable business directory in Drupal is proving to be more complicated than it really should be. He does have a video in his Learning Views screencast on how to create a view page that lists the top taxonomy terms which I considered, but it wouldn't allow secondary terms and the SBE Guide: Business Directory ebook mentions using the book module together with views. I don't mean this post to come off like a plug-fest, it is how I've been learning drupal, but I've been ripped-off recently by another teeny-weeny drupal book that promised alot and gave a little and for $39.99 this book would have to be worth its weight in gold in order to be worth it.
I am normally a bit skeptical
I am normally a bit skeptical about mini-books, etc. where you can't find reviews on Amazon, etc. However, this material in this one looks up-to-date (Drupal 7), and the author, Emma Jane Hogbin, has been active in the Drupal community for many years - she is a very good author.
I really enjoyed the Drupal User's Guide, which had a 27 page segment on the same subject matter. The expanded version seems to have more detail and very clear examples.
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I haven't looked at the book but I have to second this. If it's by Emma Jane Hogbin then I'm sure it's worth it.
Directory build using Drupal
Hi Shenagarg
We have built something similar which is already completed and successfully launched.
We chose D6 as our platform given the core and modular maturity although explored D7 at the time.
How we did it was to use Apache Solr and customised Apache Solr Location for rich text search (and search suggestions like a search engine) as well as Solr's rich facet engine (providing search facet drill down) for a two pronged user search. The search solution is very much at a level rivalling a modern search engine.
Businesses are able to sign up and create their own 1 page mini-website. We opted to use a custom content type with a content profile (linking the user to content) as CCK offers very rich fields data types in the content type. This also enabled the profile to hook into taxonomies enabling us to tightly control all collected content from site registrants.
See the site here http://www.webnetwork.com.au. We have made it look more like a search engine than a directory, but the UI is whatever you want show or hide. Do some searches and see the facet (i.e. taxonomy) drill down underneath the search results.
Our site is only a month old and we have daily user registrations and good Google indexing.
--
Mark Parsons
Digital Catalyst Group Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia
Hi,how you accomplished
Hi,how you accomplished substring seach with Apache Solr?I have something similar to do but don't know how.
Hi
When you say substring you mean within the string text? e.g. hat inside that?
Pls explain further
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Mark Parsons
Digital Catalyst Group Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia
http://www.webnetwork.com.au. events and community use
hi i want to do a similar thing but for events and community for groups in my area..
so not sure where to begin though, shame there isnt a moduel your solution looks cool http://www.webnetwork.com.au.
www.Youthworker.org
www.Adult-dyslexia.org
Good example www.webnetwork.com.au
Great.. I am developing something on same lines. Great inspiration. to move forward.
Whether a project is done?
Whether a project is done?