Hi,

I am new in EE and now trying to learn EE after downloading the core. I need to do a website for scuba divers. I am not sure can EE is a suitable tools for this project. Your advise will be great to help me make purchase decision.

Basically its a site for Scuba Divers community. members can register free and post their photos and write their dive logs in the site. So that content are dynamically generated by members.

Its mainly a divers community site, is EE suitable ?

thks

Welcome to the forums, pacochin!

EE is a great choice for community weblogs. If you have a handful of weblogs and allow your users to post their content their, that’s absolutely fine. Custom fields should also give you the flexibility to handle specific data formats, such as divelogs.

What EE would not be suitable for is giving each member his own webblog, though. Our licenses expressively forbids to use EE “as the basis of a hosted weblogging service, or to provide hosting services to others.”

My recommendation would be to work with EE Core a bit to see how you like it, or opt for the 30 day trial.

You might consider the Discussion module for a lot of that heavy lifting.

If you dig around the net, you will find a LOT of community sites revolve around forums.
You can have lots of separate forums to break up the content.
Also, you can use the wiki for some slightly more static content…and, of course, the core modules.
Take a look at our forums for an example:
http://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/

Ingmar Greil - 24 November 2008 04:31 PM

Welcome to the forums, pacochin!

EE is a great choice for community weblogs. If you have a handful of weblogs and allow your users to post their content their, that’s absolutely fine. Custom fields should also give you the flexibility to handle specific data formats, such as divelogs.

What EE would not be suitable for is giving each member his own webblog, though. Our licenses expressively forbids to use EE “as the basis of a hosted weblogging service, or to provide hosting services to others.”

My recommendation would be to work with EE Core a bit to see how you like it, or opt for the 30 day trial.

Hi Greil,

Thanks for your advise ! Yes, we do not intend to give one weblog to each member. Its just a common weblog for them to post their Dive Log (to record their diving adventure..etc) using custom fields.

However, can u point me to any site whereby i can see how a member user can upload weblog content. Do they enter their contend in front end or the back end ?

I heard about FreeForm module, can this be use ?

thks

handyman - 24 November 2008 07:06 PM

You might consider the Discussion module for a lot of that heavy lifting.

If you dig around the net, you will find a LOT of community sites revolve around forums.
You can have lots of separate forums to break up the content.
Also, you can use the wiki for some slightly more static content…and, of course, the core modules.
Take a look at our forums for an example:
http://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/

Hi Handyman,

thnks for your message. the problem i have using Forum for dive logs is that i cant create custom fields to collect specific data for scuba diving activities.

thks

pacochin - 24 November 2008 09:46 PM

Its just a common weblog for them to post their Dive Log (to record their diving adventure..etc) using custom fields.

That sounds like a very good fit, then.

However, can u point me to any site whereby i can see how a member user can upload weblog content. Do they enter their contend in front end or the back end ?

Both would be possible, of course. If we are talking about a lot of members, the Stand-Alone Entry Form (SAEF) would be the obvious choice.

I heard about FreeForm module, can this be use ?

FreeForm is a free third party module by solspace.com. It could certainly be used for your purposes, although it might not even be necessary. The standard SAEF should be sufficient for what you have in mind.

Hi Greil,

Thanks so much ! But for the EE Core i wont be able to play around with the SAEF right ? i need to buy the commercial license inorder to have membership module included ?

tks

No, the SAEF still works with EE Core, too (and of course, there’d also be the option of the paid 30 day trial). You only need a commercial license if yours is a commercial venture, otherwise Personal (or even Core) are just fine. It is true that the membership module, allowing (amongst other things) people to sign up easily via the front end, is not part of EE Core, though.

ok. i think what u are saying is that SAEF will work with core, but in order for member to register and post from front end, i will need either a personal license or commercial one.

i just found this site http://animalinternet.com/ a good example of register user able to post content !

thanks so much ! your response helps me alot.

I think that the Personal or Commercial licenses would be more appropriate, yes, because otherwise you’d have to register people via the backend, which is generally less of a good idea for a public site. The site you mentioned uses the member module, yes.