need of drupal help.
Well obviously i'm posting this post for help here because the site i'm currently working on is a social networking site.
Now before you say it...no its not a myspace or facebook clone. I have a different idea just some aspects will be similar :)
My site will hopefully be more close to be assembled like myyearbook. Where everything is more interactive then just keeping in touch with friends. The whole "profiles, messages, and comments" idea will be sitting in the background.
so here is my issue,
okay, apparently i'm just not grasping the concept or something; i don't know. For starters i have no experience in php besides reading a handful of tutorials and writing things down. The good news is that i have html and css covered. The only exception is when php gets put in the mix my brain wants to completely shut down and has no idea what is going on anymore.
Alright now, I have successfully created my css for my site and some good html with a few divs for the user profile but that is as far as i have gotten. It has been days now where i have spent late nights twisting and turning trying to figure out all these modules and putting the php together. I have downloaded, played around with, had to delete, rearrange everything a few times. I'm definitely ready to put money down on an already put together script.
So, I will narrow this issue down to the module that I would like the most to work as of now. Right now the module I wish i could get to work properly is Userpoints and all the pieces that go with it. I have downloaded and tried to use it about 4 times now. Things seem to work fine for everyone else...so i don't understand why i can't get it to work.
Now before you ask or mention something like...well you have to download all of it's components...i did this. As a matter of fact you can receive points for doing more things in D5 then in D6...yes i even tried going backwards. So half the ways to use the userpoints gets eliminated with D6. Then, I get everything going and it's looking good then i get to the ubercart. D6 version isn't complete or whatever so it dosen't work. So i tried the D5 version when i had my site up in D5 that fails too. There was something wrong with the shipping...or at least thats what the error message said and it screwed up my whole page. so i deleted shipping. Then of course, what looked like a broken script covered the whole home page.
I've also had similar problems with other modules. you'll have everything you need but one thing and it dosen't exist in the version you are using. So, maybe i should just resort to paying for a script huh?
Contrib
Contributed modules are in various states of doneness. There's 4500+ of them but they aren't all high quality. One of the biggest Drupal skills is being able to sort out which modules you need and get them all working with each other. If you are having problems with a specific module, you can post in that module's queue with your question. I, personally, have had no problems with userpoints but I just use the basic points for posts module and haven't tried doing anythign fancy with it. It sounds like you were trying to use it with ubercart so maybe that integration isn't complete.
At any rate, it's hard to help with a post like this other than to offer moral support. :) Drupal does have a high learning curve but it is very powerful. If you don't have time to learn it and don't want to hire someone to do your site, one of those pay for all in one applications may suit your needs better. They tend to not be as powerful as Drupal but the power doesn't do you any good if you aren't able to harness it anyway.
Good luck with whichever route you take,
Michelle
See my Drupal articles and tutorials or come check out the Coulee Region
Thanks :)
Well i may just sit for an all in one and while that's up and running just take my time playing around with drupal until i can figure things out or just give up.
So i appreciate your comment and the moral support :) when i attempt something i like to finish it one way or the other. My main goal besides the whole social networking project is to have my poems be read. And well i realize that maybe 1/10 people will enjoy sitting around reading or even writing poems...so thats where the social network portion comes in handy for the other people to do their own little pow wow..but stay connected with my site.
Because sitting and reading doesn't entertain people for too long so the more interactive possibilities the better; i think.
Thanks.
Social networks
The good news is that there's a lot going on in the Drupal SN world. There's a book on it and there's a Summer of Code project devoted to making an install profile. I'm working on http://shellmultimedia.com/tutorials/rebuilding-coulee-region-online-dru... but it's some months away from being finished. At some point, I'll package up what I have and make it available for download. So there's lots of progress being made, but it takes time.
Michelle
See my Drupal articles and tutorials or come check out the Coulee Region
the waiting game.
I suppose as long as things keep coming and knowledgeable people like you keep creating more simpler pieces the whole creating and putting together will be less frustrating for people like me lol.
i think what truly gets me is the fact that php is a changeable language depending on what you are trying to do pieces of the code change and what not; but html and css are pretty stable as in you use the same code to make a certain thing every time.
I seen the book i was just afraid that if i bought it and couldn't follow it correctly because of my lack of php intepruting skills that i would still not be able to catch on and it would be a waste. have you seen the book or have it? would it be a good help at creating for someone like me?
I learn the best either visually or very detailed tutorials. Yes, i'm one of those people that ask 900 questions before they actually learn something.
PHP
Yeah, the goal is to make a distro of Drupal where you install it and have all the social networking modules ready to go. We're a ways off that, though.
PHP is more complex than HTML. HTML isn't really a programming language even if some call it code. You dont' really need much PHP knowledge to use Drupal, though. The more you know, the more you can do for yourself, of course, but you can do quite a bit just plugging together existing modules. SocNet isn't very fancy but is an example of what you can do with no programming. It's all putting together modules and configuring them.
I don't have the book. I read the review and it didn't sound like anything that would be new to me. I've been using Drupal for 4 years, though. I'm sure it's more helpful to new folks.
Me, I learn by doing. I don't get a lot from books other than ideas of what's possible. I need to dig in and get my hands dirty before I learn it.
Michelle
See my Drupal articles and tutorials or come check out the Coulee Region
i'm loving it.
Yes, i think having it all ready to go would be very beneficial to new users who do not have any or little experience with drupal and programming.
ah, i thought you might say that about html..lol. but yes as i have learned it is ALOT more complex and takes a good amount of playing to get it going....well if your me..haha.
i really like what you have started with SocNet. Great idea. you know once you finish molding it you could sell it as an all in one script huh? even though it just a basic rough draft of drupal social network it is a fine example that you can use drupal to do it.
unfortunately...i tried most of those modules and then couldn't figure out how to use or place them on my drupal site after being enabled.ha. but thanks once again that gives me more motivation to keep testing things out.
No selling
Selling an install profile really goes against the spirit of the community. Whatever I do will be given away. I, personally, am not going to put much time into making a distribution, though, as there is a Summer of Code project dedicated to doing that. My plan is simply to give a copy of my demo site for people to play with.
As for setting up the modules, it depends on what you want to do with it. Userpoints, for example, doesn't do much useful simply by turning it on. But if you pair it up with, say, Author Pane in your forums, then you have a user's point count being displayed on their posts. It's often been said that Drupal is like a box of Legos. You need to put the pieces together in the order you want them to go to build what is in your imagination. :)
Michelle
See my Drupal articles and tutorials or come check out the Coulee Region
I agree with this
I agree with this completely. I'm putting together a 'social networking' site now. But that term is so broad and there are so many possibilities within Drupal, the big task is trying to stay focused on what the purpose of the site is and keep the features list hewn to that purpose.
The other thing to keep in mind is that once the site is launched, the users themselves will begin to push the site in certain directions that you cannot completely anticipate ahead of time. That's where an agile approach to development comes in to play. While Michelle's and other profiles may help developers get started, they are unlikely to provide a total solution.
Userpoints D5 worked well
I used Userpoints on a D5 site and it worked well. Haven't personally used D6.
One thing I would ask is who is your host? I found certain hosts don't always play well with Drupal (like Network Solutions) even if on the surface their specs match that of Drupal's requirements. If PHP is set up as a CGI instead of an Apache module can be an issue, etc. I offer that as a possibility in troubleshooting the issue with the module.
Good luck!