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Hi all,

My main question is: what are the BEST books/resources specifically aimed at MODULE DEVELOPMENT? I have quite a bit of CodeIgniter experience, but have never used EE… until now.  😊

I want to create a large (eventually) website that will essentially be a repository of info on a particular topic, and allow members to create and manipulate custom collections of items.

For example, a movie website:

The base site would be a huge database of movies, each movie would be associated with actors, directors, genre, etc… for advanced relationships I assume that a commercially available module like Playa would suffice?

Each channel entry, like movies, actors, directors, etc. would be “ratable” and “reviewable” by guests/members once they visit the specific page… for this functionality I assume the Rating module by Solspace would do the trick?

Each member will have their own publicly viewable profile page… I’m guessing this is baked into the EE core? If not, what are the most flexible/popular commercially available modules for this type of functionality?

But the tricky part is allowing members to create their own “Private Collection” of movies, or a sort of “Virtual box-office” if you will. I want a member to be able to visit a Movie page, and be able to “click to add to collection”, where they can later collect statistics, rate, review, and manage the items in their collection. This collection will also be publicly viewable (maybe).

Does this “collection” functionality exist in any known commercial module that I can buy? If not, I’m back to my initial question of “what is the best resource for MODULE DEVELOPMENT??”

Any help would be great, and much appreciated!

Pete.

Hi Pete welcome to the forums!

For your example you should be able to achieve everything using standard EE features or with some premade addons:

For multiple relationships (movies, actors, genres etc) then Playa would work, in fact this is the sort of stuff it excels at! You’d probably want separate channels for movies, actors etc.

Member profiles - I’d normally use the User module from Solspace but there are other alternatives (see http://www.devot-ee.com ).

For private collections check out Solspace’s “Favourites” addon, that should do exactly what you want.

Rob, thanks so much for the warm welcome and helpful reply.

I’ve actually looked at (and considered) the Favorites module from Solspace but there are a few key functionalities that it doesn’t seem to support natively. Following your suggestion however, I’ve visited their forum and started a thread with questions regarding modifying the module.

Also thank you for the suggestion for using the User module, it looks like something that would make life a little easier considering this will be my first EE project. I will also check out devot-ee for more options.

One more question, kind of related to the initial one… is it better to use modules from the same developer than to mix-and-match? For example, Solspace seems to have 3 of the 4 modules I need, is it better to get their modules for compatibility reasons or would it be ok to go for the module that most closely matches my requirements regardless of developer?

I have to ask because I’ve never been involved in building EE sites, and these types of issues are best known to experienced users.

Cheers,
Pete

You’ll find that a lot of 3rd party EE modules by one developer support modules by other developers so they run happily side by side or even integrating with each other.

Whether to get modules from the same developer really depends on your precise needs, devs like Solspace, PixelAndTonic, DevDemon and others are all highly regarded in the EE community and provide excellent support for their products. If it were me I’d go for the module that best fits my needs rather than buy all from the same developer and have to tweak.

Hello Petar,

I am glad to see that Rob has been helping you out here. That’s awesome!

Is there anything else I can help with?

Cheers,

Hi Shane,

so far it looks like Rob pointed me in the right direction, I’m going to investigate some of the modules a little more on the vendor websites.

BUT

Yes, you can help me.  😊

One of my initial questions is still waiting to get answered:  What is the best book/resource aimed at EE module development?

Pete