Thread

Hello,

I am currently re-devloping http://www.turfcare.ca

the new approved design may be seen here: http://lltml.com/clients/turf/

They currently have a product management system, in which they are able to add a manufacturer, product type, and product category, and each product added can have a product category, type, and manufacturer associated with it. It would be really tedious to add these 3 manually as opposed to from a prepopulated dropdown, so the dynamic ability to add, product category, manufacturer and type must be there.

They are also looking for an event calendar.

My question is how difficult would it be, or perhaps a module or extansion already exists, to dynamically manage products, as well as a calendar of events, along with all website content. I’ve worked with CMSs before, joomla, wordpress, and drupal, and am very comfortable in PHP (however i want to keep the additional coding to a minimum, otherwise i’ll just have to code the entire system) and would like to know if expression engin, with any addiional modules or extensions would help me achieve the above explained.

Thanks

I’m a little fuzzy on the details- but does this sound about right?  They have two main types of data/info.  First- info on their manufacturers.  Second- info on their products.  And each product will have as part of its info a manufacturer.  That about right?

well, maybe this will explain it better.

Each product belongs to a category, so product categories are added first (ex. golf carts, lighting, parts)

Then product manufacturers are added such as (ex. Torro, John Deere)

Product types are also added within a category if need be, example the golf carts category may contain additional product types (sort of a subcategory of a category) ( ex. custom cars utility, cars)

when the actual product is added, the user can first select the category it belongs to, a ubcategory it belongs to (if one exists) and a manufacturer, then enter all remaining details for the product.

thanks.

OK- doesn’t sound like a problem.  With EE, you have multiple ‘weblogs’- which is really just a data container.  Sounds like you only need one weblog/data container- for ‘products’.  Now- you can create category groups- and in those groups, categories can be nested as deeply as you need.  So no biggie- create a category group called ‘Product type’- have parent category of ‘golf carts’ and subcats under golf carts of ‘cup holder’ er- other golf cart subcats.  You can have sub-subcats- as deeply nested as you need.  You can even assign multiple category groups to one weblog if you like- though it doesn’t sound like you need to.  See category management.

Then- you create a custom field group for your weblog- see custom weblog fields- so you could have a field for manufacturer.  And- one of your field type options is a dropdown field - you could type all of your manufacturers in there and when you enter the data, just select one of them.  Or- if folks are likely to navigate by manufacturer?  I might make them categories instead- so you’d have a category group for product type, and one for manufacturer.  And you handle it that way.  Both are qually simple- which way I’d go would depend on whether navigating by manufacturer was something I needed to do.

So- all that is easy.

As to the event calendar- EE has one- you use a weblog to store event information and the entry date for the weblog entries is used as the event date.  Check it out- see if it looks like it will meet your needs.  If you haven’t tried EE yet- there are a couple of trial options available.  Putting it through its paces is definitely the best way to tell if it’s the right fit for the job.  Looks to me like it should be, but you’ll be the best judge of that.

Make sense?

thanks…i’ll give a trial a go..is it limited in functionality in any way?

Let’s see- the Core- which you download and install on your own server- lacks some of the modules included in the Hosted demo- you can see the ones ‘Core’ includes vs. Personal/Pro.  I’m not spotting any that are crucial to most of what you need to test, though.  And I always like installing things myself.  So- I’d probably pull down Core and install it, just to check out the whole process and maybe take a look at the code.

With the hosted demo- you get all of the modules, including the forum (which is a separate purchase and you don’t need it- but it’s fun to check out).  BUT- you can’t use php in your templates like you can with anything else and you can’t upload additional plugins and such if there were any you were curious about.

For your needs?  It sounds like a stock install and no php/custom queries will likely be needed to do the trick.  So either one would likely work fine for testing.  Or try Core- and if it’s missing anything you’re curious about, try the hosted demo as well.

it looks like the core does not support the Pages module. Does that mean I can’t use EE core as a CMS and have static PAGES with editable content?

thanks

Well- it’s a commercial site, so you’ll end up needing a commercial license if you go with EE.  For testing, I don’t know that it much matters.  Pages basically lets you specify a url- it’s pretty simple to use and will take maybe 10 minutes to get the hang of once you understand the rest of the system.  Mostly I use it for ‘about’ pages and such- my ‘orphans’.  Which were actually pretty easy to handle before the Pages module- you just get a nicer url now.  But- if you’re curious- and it is nice to have- the hosted trial will definitely let you try Pages out.  As well as my personal favorite- the query module.  Plus- the email module is one you’re likely to use- Core doesn’t have it.  On the flip side- I generally use Solspace’s Freeform module if I’m doing complex forms- you’d want the Core version if you want to upload that.

thanks, i’ll try it out.

I’m having a difficult type with this CMS.

I’ve added a category of “Products” within the Default Categories. I’ve than added two subcategories “Manufacturers” and “Types” as subcategories of Products, and than I’ve added “John Deere” and “Torro” as subcategories of “Manufacturers” and “Golf Cars”, “Trim Mowers” and “Utility Cars” as subcategories of “Types”

Now when I go to edit my weblog, and I put in a new entry, there is no way for me to select a manufacturer and a type for a given product, AND have it show up specifically on a products page. I’m assuming that in the full version I will be able to publidh content within a specific page (in this case “Products”) and have the ability to enter a product with specific fields (which I can add also to the system) as well as two drop down fields, one for type and one for manufacturer….can you please explain in a little more detail how I can achieve this.

thanks.

P.S. you can see how what i’ve entered is showing up now….http://in905.com/turf/

Hi 3magine,

I’d highly recommend going through the following resources as a way to orient yourself to how EE works before getting too deep into your main project.

Quick Start Tutorial

Video Tutorials

Boyink’s Building an ExpressionEngine Site series.

A very important key to EE is understanding the relationship between a weblog entry and a template. By default all associations between a template and a weblog are made by the developer, not by EE. This is what gives EE its tremendous flexibility. In other words, you’ll need to understand how to create those relationships in order to achieve what you state in your post. Its all very doable but I’d recommend starting with some basic learning tools first.