I have been asked to create a database for proposal teams to see what small spacecraft components and techniques are available at Ames. The database will also be used by directors to see the general trends that will inform changes in facilities, investment, and other planning issues.
There are so many categories of records, such as antenna, FPGAs, mission operations, and launch vehicles, as well as many ways the user should be able to search for the data, such as by flight status (has it flown or not). We want something to show in about a month but just a start. This sounds like it will be a very evolving database as the customer isn't even sure what kinds of search queries will be asked. Therefore I want to use something we all can help with.
What is your take on the type of database and frontend to use? One solution is to use MySQL and phpMyAdmin and produce custom queries for a custom php application. Is it reasonable instead to use Drupal CCK and a whole bunch of content types and vocabularies to create such an evolving database? I noticed that deleting terms on vocabularies messes up references in some modules which rely on the order of the terms. Have any links to best practices involving vocabulary?
(Attached is the brainstorm of what kind of content the database will store.)
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| ARC Tech Investment_v2.doc | 12.08 KB |
Comments
Use ApacheSolr for search
http://drupal.org/project/apachesolr
Acquia has a hosted service with a 1 month free trial: http://acquia.com/products-services/acquia-search
This would allow you to make the categories with Taxonomy or (probably better) CCK, and then have them automatically turn into facets for faceted searching. In the very near future ApacheSolr will let you build site navigation based on these facets as well, and it's possible to make decision-tree like steps of drill-down links to get through the various facets in either controlled or variable order. Contact me if you want to do some further brainstorming.
-Robert