General Drupal help with small volunteer organization needed.

Posted by samstamport on February 14, 2015 at 1:13pm

Greetings,

I live in West Columbia, TX. I want to build a web site for our volunteer group using Drupal. I need basic advice on whether to start with Drupal Core or a distribution such as AbleOrganizer of Civicrm. Features I'd like to see are:

        Group email
        Track & schedule volunteer hours 
        Plants database (searchable wiki?)          
        Accept $ donations
        About
        Forum
        Contact Us
        Login/register
        Calendar
        Blogs
        Social media interface
        Multi-platform support for small screens (iPad, etc.)

Any general help you can provide to get me started would be greatly appreciated!

Comments

Core can be an option

Posted by pal4life on February 23, 2015 at 8:56pm

Hi Perstam,
The things noted above can be built by starting with the core installation and then checking what features are not there the way you want it. Then you can install related modules.

The advantage of starting with core is you can have a flexible system where you can add other modules and as your requirement changes , new modules can be installed. Nothing wrong with going with a pre-packaged one like Civicrm but then if you are not use to Drupal development then you are adding another layer for yourself. Also there is more chance of finding tutorials and assistance with the broader modules. Although it is very subjective to what you are looking for.

Let us know how this is going for you. (There can be a steep learning curve for beginners in Drupal , but I promise its all worth it in the end).

Best way to get started :

I do prefer setting up my own MAMP or XAMPP and installing drupal through git and drush integration. Although you can also being with a simple drupal gardens site to see how this project would work out for you.

https://www.drupalgardens.com/

Thanks.

Thanks so much for

Posted by samstamport on February 23, 2015 at 9:06pm

Thanks so much for responding.

I'm learning a lot, but I can't figure out how to read the whole thread on this post. What do I click on to see my original post?

Duh! I've been glued to my

Posted by samstamport on February 23, 2015 at 9:18pm

Duh!

I've been glued to my computer screen too long today. When I clicked the right link in the automated email I was able to see the entire thread!

But, back to my original question. Since posting it I discovered Open Outreach. Today I dove into panels since that's what it uses for the home page. I figured out how to delete a portion that didn't make sense for my volunteer organization.

I'm watching a video just now on RedHen to help me track my volunteers & other contacts.

I'm sure I'll be back here with another post if I get stuck. Thanks for being available and being patient with a newbie.

I chose Acquia for development, but I'll take a look at Drupal Gardens as well.

How is this coming along?

Posted by pal4life on March 25, 2015 at 4:10pm

How is this coming along? Just curious, did it pan out nicely?

Please see the thread at

Posted by samstamport on March 25, 2015 at 11:08pm

Please see the thread at https://forums.acquia.com/acquia-products-and-services/dev-desktop/updat... for details about my current situation with Acquia Dev Desktop. I'm a bit surprised that a for-profit company such as Acquia releases software that doesn't work very well. I understand that Drupal is Open Source and volunteer supported, but Acquia is not.

I don't mean to alienate of embarrass anyone with the above. It is simply an opinion/observation. I always tried to teach my students to write bullet-proof code that would not break regardless of what the user did or did not do. Dev Desktop seems to fail in this regard.

If you have time to read the above thread you will see that my question about what folders to back up have not been specifically answered. Can you tell me? What folders do I need to back up in case I really mess things up again? Where, exactly is the database file(s)? What is its name?

From what I've learned so far from reading & watching videos, Drupal lives in a database. It is where all the HTML & maybe php code is stored. PHP is the glue that holds it all together. I'm sure this is an oversimplification ...

Anyway, I've not given up on Drupal or Dev Desktop. Drupal has an excellent reputation. I'll keep hanging in there.

Thanks so much for the follow

Posted by samstamport on March 25, 2015 at 6:51pm

Thanks so much for the follow up.

I've been stuck dealing with my own stupidity and a bug in Acquia Dev Desktop. I'm dead in the water right now.

I'm headed out & away for the Internet for a few hours. I'll put another post with more details when I return.

Development

Posted by johndubo on March 25, 2015 at 7:02pm

I found Pantheon to be a great development/hosting platform for someone just learning/building a first site in Drupal. I used Acquia Dev desktop a lot when learning, but once I was ready to start building, Pantheon was so much more intuitive to me than Acquia's platform.

My 2¢, worth admission charged. :)

Good luck!

P.S. - here's the site we built: thebuzzmagazines.com

Your site looks great! From

Posted by samstamport on March 25, 2015 at 8:35pm

Your site looks great!

From what I can tell (from a brief read of the Pantheon web site) is that it does not run on my local computer as does Dev Desktop.

I really like the idea of running a web site locally where I can have total control.

Thanks!

Posted by johndubo on March 25, 2015 at 9:25pm

It doesn't run locally. But I found it much easier to take from development to live since you are developing in (basically) the same environment that you will launch in.